LOCAL RESIDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN TOURISM AT A WORLD HERITAGE SITE AND LIMITATIONS: A CASE OF AKSU-JABAGLY NATURAL WORLD HERITAGE SITE, KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

One of the core elements of tourism development is considered to encourage local communities‟ participation in World Heritage (WH) tourism because of its vital role in the sustainability. Albeit more and more scholars have attached much importance on researching developing tourism fields of the country, unfortunately, very few researches have been undertaken to identify and analyze major issues in natural world heritage tourism in Kazakhstan, including the management structure, financial resources, tourism impacts, policy making and local community participation. In this context, there is a need to explore what level such communities can participate in the tourism at World Heritage sites (WHS) where tensions between preservation and tourism are notable. The main purpose of this article is to indicate the local residents‟ participation in heritage tourism and analyze the impacting factors on their participation. In our research, we conducted a questionnaire survey of 222 representative households from two neighboring settlements of Aksu-Jabagly natural world heritage site. The results of the research show that the inhabitants do not actively participate in the development of tourism. The results also reveal that few travelers‟ coming to this tourist destination and lack of preferential policies were the primary restrictions for local residents‟ participation in tourism.