Assessment of the Influence of Education on Tourism Development in Enugu State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of Education on tourism development in Enugu state. Special focus was on the relationship between environmental awareness and residents’ commitment to tourism activities. Information for the study was basically from the questionnaire survey and participatory research method. The generated data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and an inferential statistic with one-way Anova adopted to test hypothesis one and students T-test adopted to test hypothesis two of the study. The result of the analyses revealed that there exist a significant relationship between people with formal education and people without any form of education in the study area (F(10,5) =6.60, p<0.5) and that there exist a significant difference in the people involved tourism related activities and the people involved in non-tourism related ones, with the population of people involved in tourism related activities having a mean of (M=11.4) while those involved in non-tourism related activities having mean of (M=38.56) as t=(dt=15)=5.31, since tcal(5.31)>ttab(2.12) at the 15 degree of freedom (2tailed), the null hypothesis was therefore rejected. It was observed that the lower the level of environmental awareness, the lower the residents’ commitment to tourism. Based on the above findings, it is recommended that all stakeholders and local people (residents) be involved in all the stages and processes of tourism development (planning, execution and benefit- sharing) and that environmental education be incorporated into the school curriculum in school within the state.