ABSTRACT

The study examined the creative tourism panacea on economic sustainability in Abia State. The specific objectives of the study include ; to determine the Akwette cloth weaving in ukwa west L.G.A being able to provide job opportunity to the youths of the community; to determine the contribution of Akwette cloth weaving to the community at large in terms of co-operate image; To determine Revenue generated from Akwette cloth weaving in ukwa west L.G.A to the government per annum; to examined Challenges faced in the industry towards creative tourism and to determine how can creative tourism be developed and promoted as a panacea on economic sustainability in the study area, survey research design was adopted. The researcher adopted primary data in getting the required information through the use of structured questionnaire. The population of the study was made up of all the registered tourist attractions in Umuahia, Abia State which was 119 and the sample size of the study has 92 after adopting proportional allocation formula. In analysis the data, simple descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used. The result of the Analysis revealed that (i) Akwette cloth weaving in Ukwa West L.G.A been helpful to Abia State in provision of employment, contribution to civilization, attractions of foreign investors, economic development, attention from the government. (ii) Improvement of the culture of the community, improvement local product like bag, it is used in weaving clothes for traditional event, improvement the traditions of the community, Improvement of infrastructure in the area are evidence of contribution of Akwette cloth weaving to the community at large in terms of co-operate image in Abia State. (iii) Akwette cloth weaving in Ukwa West L.G.A served as a source of income to community from the sales of Akwete weavers, sales of the Akwete bags, shoe and clothes at trade fair festac, annual allocations from the government. (iv) The challenges facing creative tourism in Abia State include; dimension of creativity remains vague, Mismatch existence between the perceptions of local stakeholders and the needs of tourists, lack of transformations, Creative tourism lack attention from the government, there has been relatively little research on the experience of creativity of both visitor and resident. (v) Creative tourism be developed and promoted as a panacea for Economic Sustainability for tourism destination in Nigeria by Creativity influences of art and culture, Creative tourism as a form of cultural tourism that Contributes towards sustainability of a country's revenue, it is used in weaving clothes for traditional event. The mean value gotten from the analysis of the objectives includes; for objective one is 3.70,for objective two is 3.44,for objective three 3.40,for objective four 3.72,for objective five is 3.80.The Researcher also made recommendations based on the research Objectives.