Abstract:
The study focused on challenges and prospects of Developing Coastal Tourism in Rivers State, Nigeria. Specifically, the objectives were to: (i) identify the various tourism resources in the coastal area of the State, (ii) ascertain the actions taken towards protection and preservation of tourism resources, (iii) ascertain the challenges of coastal tourism development and (iv) determine the prospects of coastal tourism development in the State. The survey design was adopted for the study. Bonny, Opobo and Port Harcourt Local Government Areas (LGAs) were randomly selected from the 12 LGAs that lie within 60km radius from the coast. The population of the study was 1,067,481. The sample size was 400, statistically determined using Taro Yamane formula. The instruments for data collection were observation checklist, questionnaire and interview guide. The instruments were validated by five experts in tourism. Three water samples were collected to ascertain the safety of water for recreation and three soil samples and control soil sample to determine the capacity of the soil to carry tourist resort built on it without collapsing and planting of flowers for decoration. These were subjected to physico-chemical and microbiological tests. The data collected with questionnaire were analyzed using simple percentages. The comparative analysis of the water samples was done with World Health Organization and Nigeria National Water Quality Standards while the soil samples were compared with the control soil sample. Mangrove forests, sacred forests, beaches, fishing rivers, historical monuments, shrines, museums, cultural festivals, slave port, recreational park and zoological garden were among the tourism resources identified in the State. The communities had norms and sanctions which protected the potentials against poaching, deforestation, bush burning, and illegal grazing. Prominent among the resources protected were ‘Rehueli’ forest, ‘Finima’ forest, ‘Amadioha’ forest, Thunders forest, ‘Nwominirehu’ forest, and ‘Tolofari’ forest as well as wildlife species such as owl, white egret, hippopotamus, water horse, kiwi, ‘nkelu’, and ‘asiri’. The challenges of tourism development in the State were apathy from government, pollution, illegal grazing, gas-flaring, bush burning, community conflict, poaching and the presence of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH). The availability of good access roads, decent hotels, communication networks, museums, airport, sea port, hospitals and high level of acceptance (91.70%) by local residents of the communities for tourism development were good prospects of tourism development.
