Sustainable Tourism Factors and Community Participation in The Decision-Making Process of Nature-Based Tourism Development in Lake Holon, T'boli, South Cotabato

Abstract

This paper used a descriptive and quantitative method to determine the factors influencing variables through statistical methods on sustainable tourism factors and the decision-making process. Wherein, this method has evaluated the link between sustainable tourism development and community participation in the decision-making process in Lake Holon, T'boli, and South Cotabato using Google Forms. The quantitative nature of this study reveals the relation between sustainable tourism factors and the decision-making process in Lake Holon, T'boli, and South Cotabato. Method used include purposive sampling to distribute the Google forms to the respondents that allows exploration and understanding of the students’ responses, through dealing with their in depth experiences in which survey was divided into 3 parts – Part I delves into the profile of the respondents. Part II deals with sustainable tourism development with ethnic group resources, ethnic group development, and sustainable dimensions that measure the level of sustainable tourism development of nature-based tourism in Lake Holon, T'boli, South Cotabato. Part III deals with community participation in the decision-making process in T’boli, South Cotabato along with its three indicators which are group resources, ethnic group development, and sustainable dimensions. Researchers used the rating scale to interpret the responses for the indicators of sustainable tourism development. Analysis of the data reveals significant relationship between sustainable tourism factors and community participation in the decision-making process of nature-based tourism development in Lake Holon, T’boli, South Cotabato. The researchers’ respondents included some residents from T’boli South Cotabato and netizens from social media sites. It has revealed that the respondents have a uniform selection of responses from the provided survey. The high-level result means that sustainable tourism factors of Lake Holon, T'boli, South Cotabato were very much observed.