Exploring the Potential for Rural Entrepreneurship through Integrated Community

This article intends to the validate measurement model for integrated community intervention strategies (ICIS) and explore the entrepreneurial orientation of community members in ecotourism destinations through ICIS. The study adopted the exploratory sequential method. The study employed focused groups, interviews and structured questionnaires for primary data collection. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and percentage analysis were conducted for testing the hypothesis. Data were gathered from four protected area based ecotourism destinations of Kerala, India, namely, Thenmala, Periyar, Parambikulam and Wayanad. The result indicates that there are three latent constructs for ICIS that is governance intervention strategies, eco-development intervention strategies and commercial intervention strategies. As far as entrepreneurial orientation is concerned, local community members are able to orient themselves in three levels of entrepreneurial requirements positively, namely, exploration, initiation and sustenance. The study gives a pragmatic model of community intervention in tourism and entrepreneurial orientation resulting from such interventions, which can be further explored to establish a standard model to enhance more inclusive and sustainable resource management practices through enterprise development. Accordingly, the results of the study can influence policymakers, stakeholders and tourism practioners