Abstract:
One of the core elements of tourism development is considered to
encourage local communities‟ participation in World Heritage (WH) tourism because
of its vital role in the sustainability. Albeit more and more scholars have attached
much importance on researching developing tourism fields of the country,
unfortunately, very few researches have been undertaken to identify and analyze
major issues in natural world heritage tourism in Kazakhstan, including the
management structure, financial resources, tourism impacts, policy making and local
community participation. In this context, there is a need to explore what level such
communities can participate in the tourism at World Heritage sites (WHS) where
tensions between preservation and tourism are notable. The main purpose of this
article is to indicate the local residents‟ participation in heritage tourism and analyze the impacting factors on their participation. In our research, we conducted a
questionnaire survey of 222 representative households from two neighboring settlements
of Aksu-Jabagly natural world heritage site. The results of the research show that the
inhabitants do not actively participate in the development of tourism. The results also
reveal that few travelers‟ coming to this tourist destination and lack of preferential
policies were the primary restrictions for local residents‟ participation in tourism.
