Trust is an important relationship and interpersonal construct, researchers such as Blau (1964) emphasize on the role and importance of trust in social exchanges. Tourism development is related with trust and depends on economic stability of a country since it has an impact on the citizen’s income, it also plays a great role in the development of other sectors within that country. This needs the government to ensure trust and give supports to citizens through building enabling environment for income earnings. A stable and highly performing economic climate encourages investment in various sectors that lead to economic growth. Tanzania and other developing countries that place great emphasis on tourism have experienced the influence of economic on tourism development in their countries. According to Goeldner (2003) despite the importance of international tourism, for many countries, domestic tourism is becoming more important, this is further proved by the World Tourism Organization (WTO), estimated a higher income from domestic tourism worldwide.
Trust is a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectation of the intention or behaviour of another. Trust is important for building relationship that underlies economic development, legitimacy of government institution and promoting outcome which are in the best interest of the society. According to Molm et al. (2000) trust is expectation that an exchange partner will behave benignly, based on attribution of positive dispositions and intentions to the partner in situation of uncertainty and risk. Actors are involved in a relationship and evaluate it in long-term benefits hence depends on trust between the partners.
Other study analyzed trust based on political system such as Carreira et al. (2016). Citizen distrust of the political system removes the moral legitimacy of democratically elected individuals to govern, despite the officials’ theoretical obligation to defend the interests of the citizens, they will not participate in decision making. Often, this leads to the neglected management of common property policies, such as those related to community or the environment such as tourism. According to Carreira et al. (2016) promoting citizen participation in public decisions will help develop fair and sustainable territories, but the interaction between citizen participation and trust in politicians and public institutions is complex and should be considered carefully.
According to Thammajinda (2013) trust with regard to community participation become very important because trust in tourism institutions is vital for tourism processes, through trust members of community will be treated equally in terms of equal voices as well as resources allocation. Trust prevent corruption and unfairness in the societies. According to Albrecht (2016) high trust can be an indicator for more collaboration. Albrecht (2016) think of trust not only between individuals but also in organizations surrounding them as one of the fundamental principles of social capital. Individuals that show high interpersonal trust among one other, most likely create more willingness to cooperate, while likewise frequent social interaction strengthen interpersonal trust.
These mutual trust relations are nurturing cooperation and reduce time and costs between individuals for various sorts of transactions. Trust and social participation are therefore highly correlated and mutually reinforcing. Trust is inherit in community relations, and requires reciprocity the mutual exchange of goods and knowledge. When reciprocity is not given, cooperative activities like tourism development are unlikely to happen and result to suspiciousness, opportunistic behaviour, conflicts or simply distrust arise. Therefore it can be said that, when the level of trust is high in a community, collaborative behaviour with others is more likely to happen in the society.
In this study, residents’ exchange partner is the tourism development process in the government who possess high power in tourism policies and plans. In Tanzania the government intervenes in tourism because of political, environment and economic reasons and controls development through formal ministries, department or councils. Hence trust is conceptualized as residents’ trust in government institution involved in tourism. According to Nunkoo (2016), citizen’s trust in government institution, trust is defined as confidence that political institution will not misuse power. Trust is determined by expectation of one partner (residents) from another (government) appearing benign.
Participation of citizens in tourism is a support of tourism sector within the country. However, the ways in which it can be understood inevitably influence the achievement of the goals that control over any industry that is ready to develop. The drawbacks of citizen participation are directly related to the level of trust in governmental institutions and in politicians. Carreira et al. (2016) through their case study, described citizens’ opinions and trust in politicians and government institutions and demonstrated that healthy levels of citizen engagement in politics may be upheld as long as citizens trust their political institutions and leaders. Resident’s participation in tourism like any other sector may also influenced by trust in government.
