Abstract

The purpose of the study was to establish pattern of local participation in tourism supply business and its implication on local poverty reduction. The specific objective of the study included finding out the key local commodities that are important driver of tourism backward linkage with local economy of Kisumu County, establish differences in the average score profile among local suppliers and find out the main dimension along which they are separated. The study adopted across sectional and correlation design in which stratified random sampling of 106 tourism enterprises from a target population of 266 enterprises was obtained. Self – administered questionnaires were distributed to managers and collected by researcher. The first, second and third objectives were analysed using descriptive statistics, MANOVA and descriptive discriminant analysis respectively. It was found out that while poultry products, fish and vegetables were main commodities in the trade between local suppliers and tourist industry, fish, beef, and detergent were the most consumed commodities. Secondly, suppliers were different in their mean score profile by the value and quality of their supply, promptness in their delivery of supplies and in the longevity in commercial relationship with the tourist industry. Lastly, the suppliers were separated significantly along two main dimensions: The first dimension was interpreted to be efficiency and effectiveness, being represented by high value of weekly supply and high rating on promptness in making deliveries. The second dimension was experience, which was indicated by suppliers` education level and their longevity in the commercial relation with the tourist industry. The key contribution of the study is the creation of understanding of the main commodities driving tourism backward linkage with local economy and the factors which confer competitive advantage among local traders of Kisumu County in tourist industry.