Impacts of Wildlife Tourism on Rural Livelihoods in Southern Africa - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 155

the local economy can be relatively small. In some areas (e.g. Botswana) it is noted
that most local people are employed in menial positions, while management jobs
are filled by expatriates. However, in Zambia the average proportion of expatri-
ates employed in Luangwa lodges has declined over time (Pope, 2005). The
salaries of people working in the wildlife tourism sector ranged widely depending
on the standard of accommodation and country concerned, even within
countries. For example, wages for locals in Botwsana range from US$816 per
year in the Okavango Delta (Mbiwa, 2003), to $4295 per year in northern
Botswana (Suich et al, 2005). Little information is available to explicitly link the
impact of wildlife tourism on levels of poverty, but research reports frequently
observe that enterprises could raise their employees, and sometimes also their
dependants, above the international poverty line of US$1 per day.
Communal and household benefits
Benefits distributed to households from community-based tourism enterprises,
trophy hunting or joint ventures included both cash and products (e.g. animal
products, agricultural supplements). Communities use wildlife resources to
generate income from both hunting and photographic tourism. Joint-venture
operations, where there is a private-sector partner, tend to be more successful
because of the business acumen (particularly the skills of marketing and promo-
tion) brought to the project by the outside partner. The levels of revenue
distributed depends on factors that include: (1) the turnover of the tourism
business, (2) wildlife density, (3) the type of partnership arrangement, (4) the
number of beneficiaries living in the community, and (5) the institutional struc-
ture through which the benefits pass (e.g. RDCs in Zimbabwe compared with
community-based organizations in Botswana). The type of partnership arrange-
ment could include bed night levies, rental fees, annual flat-rate fees and
percentages of turnover. Annual dividends ranged from less than US$5 per year
in CAMPFIRE regions of Zimbabwe in 2001 (Child et al, 2003) to $488 per
person in Botswana (Arntzen et al, 2003). However, even small benefits can have
a substantial impact on livelihoods: Long (2004), found that US$74 could
support the basic grocery costs for a local household for three months in
Namibia. In both Botswana and Namibia there are instances where the revenue
generated for communities from joint-venture agreements can be higher than
wage benefits, or from hunting (Arntzen et al, 2003; WWF-Life, 2005).
Consumptive or non-consumptive wildlife tourism?
Trophy hunting often generates more revenue than photographic tourism, and
from a smaller number of tourists, but photographic tourism has a higher
economic multiplier (in terms of more jobs and wages). Both forms of nature-
based tourism may be operated by an enterprise: either at different stages of
development of the enterprise (e.g. the Makuleke), during different seasons (e.g.
in Botswana) or in different locations on a property or within a conservancy.