ASSESSING TOURISM BUSINESS RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGE VARIABILITY IN LAKE BARINGO REGION, KENYA

Abstract

The academic literature indicates mixed impacts of climate change on tourism businesses. The impact is depicted as somewhat positive in certain instances but mainly negative and some cases disastrous. Lake Baringo region has been affected by climate change variability. The environment around the lake is often weakened by repetitive threats due to the effects of climate change. Thus, several tourist attractions, businesses, and infrastructures have been adversely affected by climate change; hence, the need to establish small-scale tourism business resilience to climate change variability in the region. The study adopted the socio-ecological system framework to examine the precariousness, resistance, and latitude of tourism Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in the face of climate disturbance in the region. The study adopts qualitative research approach based on case study design. The qualitative face-to-face interviews were conducted by the researcher. The study respondents were owners or managers of tourism businesses whose activities were affected by the climate variability in the region. This study used deductive-inductive analysis approach based on the conceptual model of stability landscape to develop a resilience framework specific to a tourism destination. The findings showed that, to remain stable in its socio-ecological space, a system is required to regularly monitor its precariousness, the capacity of its actors to respond to major disturbances and to expand its latitude. The tourism subsystems that were targeted as part of this work are: transport (road, lake), accommodation (hotels, campsites) and activities (lake-based activities, land based activities). Managers and owners of tourism businesses linked to these subsystems noted the main disruptions related to climate change in the Lake Baringo region included the spectacular rise in water levels of Lake Baringo, drought, excessive rainfall and flash floods caused by the overflow of Endao River. To be resilient in the face of these disruptions, companies applied different strategies linked both to their managerial capacity and to the particularity of the threat. Thus, the results showed that the resistance of tourism businesses in Lake Baringo region was linked to the sensitivity of each of them to a specific disturbance. To expand the latitude of their companies, managers implemented strategies such as: the diversity of tourist products and markets, recruitment of well-informed and experienced staff, maintaining partnership in the event of adverse climatic conditions and control of competition. It was noted that medium-sized tourism enterprises in the Lake Baringo region were more favored in latitude because they have the possibility of diversifying products through their sub-systems than small enterprises which are limited. Regarding the control of precariousness, Interviews with operators revealed that the operation of some businesses in Lake Baringo area is often close to their limits. This is the example of a hotel that operates with only 35% of usual services and the other 65 not being operational due to the disasters caused by the spectacular water levels rise. The resilience of tourism businesses in the Lake Baringo region is therefore linked to the efficient management of these three dimensions by tourism entrepreneurs, to the particularity of each sub-system and to the specificity of each disturbance due to climate change variability. The study recommended that there is need for training the small-sized tourism business owners to help them build their adaptive capacity and expand their latitude. TSMEs need to acquire equipment and infrastructure capable of resisting the effects of climate change. To initiate and develop educational program in ecosystem preservation for the local communities, business managers and professional associations in order to strengthening in long term the resistance of TSMEs to climatic disturbances. To expand the tourism activities beyond the reliance of the lake in order to move them away from the operational limit imposed by the effects of climate change variability. Overall, the study contributes to the theorization of the resilience factors of tourism businesses which are often subject to shocks and stresses of all kinds. This study is a model of the interconnectivity of sciences which links the tourist fact to the knowledge of other sciences.