LAUSR

This paper explores festival tourism and its effectiveness as an instrument of sustainable livelihood in local communities. The study is premised on the contrasting scenario of the thriving MTN Bushfire festival in the midst of the communities in the Kingdom of Eswatini struggling under the weight of extreme poverty and high unemployment. A quantitative research approach was employed in collecting data from one hundred community members attending the festival. The key finding emanating from this study is that community members who took part in the study have a limited understanding of sustainable livelihood requirements as this is heavily skewed towards economic needs. The main recommendation from this study relates to greater stakeholder involvement and participation, especially communities, at all levels of festival planning, execution, and beneficiation.