Impacts of Tourism Economic Benefits on Natural Resource Conservation

This research aims to investigate impacts of tourism on local economy and its results in natural resource conservation by local community. The case study area includes protected area of Miankaleh and its vicinity villages. The survey analysis was employed using questioners of residents both inside and outside of the area. In order to analyze variables it used statistical method includs one sample t-test and independen sample t-test and correlation with SPSS software. The results show that tourism has entailed meaningful economic impacts to the protected area. The other result shows there is significant relationship between perceived tourism economic benefits by the local community and their advocating to protect their natural resource. Inside residents show higher dependency to tourism activities than outside communities. Additional finding shows that while there is no significant difference between the two groups of resident’s support to the protected area, but inside community shows more and higher enthusiasm to protect the area. This reaction from inside community to protect the area can be explained by higher dependency to or more positive attitude to economic impacts of tourism in the case study area.