Community Empowerment and Communication Role in Creating Consensus and Acceptability for Innovative Tourism to Support Diversified Economy Oman

Abstract

The present research investigates community empowerment and communication's role in promoting community support for innovative, sustainable tourism development. It also examines community support, perceived benefits, perceived cost association and influence on innovative, sustainable tourism development. Mixed methods, which comprise qualitative and quantitative data, have been applied. The research frameworks have been adapted after a comprehensive literature review. The framework encompasses six constructs - community empowerment, integrated communication strategies and their influence on community support, perceived benefits and perceived cost to understand the empirical evidence. The findings elucidate that community empowerment and communication are prominent predictors in creating consensus and acceptability of local communities to encourage innovative, sustainable tourism to support Oman's diversified economic drive. The findings can be used as a reference document for future studies.