Abstract
Limited sustainable employment among rural women in Africa is a major obstacle to rural development. In this regard, there is proliferation of rural tourism enterprises which seek to create employment opportunities for women. However, there is limited documented research on the sustainability of such employment opportunities, especially in Kenya. This study attempted to fulfil this gap by examining the successes and shortcomings of ecotourism enterprises in empowering local Maasai women by advancing the community empowerment framework through ecotourism. The study adopted mixed method research design. Primary data was collected through self-administered questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions and observation. Out of 118 Maasai women engaged in the project, 95 of the women were available and participated in the study. Data collected was organized, labelled, coded then synthesized into themes and analyzed descriptively. The findings of the study showed that even though the project provided sustainable employment to the disadvantaged rural Maasai women, its shortcomings outweighed the successes. The project was more perceived as a form of precarious employment rather than sustainable employment opportunity for the local Maasai women.
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Ariya, G., Sempele, C., Simaloi, F. (2020). Local Maasai Women Empowerment Through Employment Opportunity: Lessons from Base Camp Maasai Brand in Maasai Mara, Kenya. In: Baum, T., Ndiuini, A. (eds) Sustainable Human Resource Management in Tourism. Geographies of Tourism and Global Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41735-2_11
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