Creative Tourism and Business Development in Akwa Ibom State

Abstract

Creative Tourism is a new tourism opportunity that emphasizes the engagement between host and guests who are interested in actively participating in and learning from an authentic experience. It is the future of cultural tourism. Although it is considered as an escape route from the reproduction of cultural assets of tourism destination, contributing the preserve of original cultures and intangible heritage. A simple evaluation of the performance of the Nigerian Tourism industry reveals the absence of a tourism spirit among industry players and the lack of adequate visitor ready tourism products. Despite the low contribution of tourism to the national GDP of the Country, the Nigerian government has made several efforts and attempts to boost the industry with sporadic developments in some states of the country of which Akwa Ibom State is one of them. It is with this view that this study seeks to investigate Creative tourism and business development in Akwa Ibom State. Using a quantitative analysis, a total sample of 192 entrepreneurs were investigated. Findings revealed that Creative Tourism relates positively with business development in Akwa Ibom State.

Innovative Behaviour: Male Vs Female Entrepreneurs in Akwa Ibom State

“…Entrepreneurship brings about wealth creation, innovation, competitiveness and job generation which is seen as a global panacea for the problems of unemployment and poverty ). Being an entrepreneur is largely seen as a male-gendered enterprise (Baker & Liou, 1997;Achtenhagen & Welter, 2011) which is strongly strengthened given the large number of male entrepreneurs that are successful and the ratio of male to female managers in most corporate institutions (Brownson, 2021). Cantzler and Leijon (2007) pointed out that a wide gap exists between male participation in business as entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs.…”