Collaboration and community participation are crucial for securing sustainable tourism and highlight the need to listen and respond to the broad range of stakeholders’ voices, opinions, and concerns. These concepts dominated the discourse of sustainable-responsible tourism and gave rise to collaboration theory as well as various types of community participation. Many scholars in both Western and emerging economies have employed these concepts; however, there is limited research on how they apply in the Nigerian tourism industry. Therefore, this exploratory research discusses collaboration and community participation in tourism development in Nigeria, using the Southeastern region as a case study. In this area, tourism is in the early phase of growth. The paper reports on interviews and focus group discussions used to interact with tourism stakeholders in the region (traditional rulers, men, women, and youth representatives, chief priests, security agents, and tourism officials). Results showed that while the stakeholders are willing to collaborate, challenges affecting their efforts include autocratic governance structures leading to mistrust, clash of responsibilities, inadequate funding for security, lack of tourism awareness and little respect for local culture. The paper concludes that to develop a resident-friendly tourism destination and sustain collaboration and community participation, stakeholders require education about tourism and opportunities to participate in planning.

合作和社区参与对于确保可持续旅游业至关重要，并强调需要倾听并回应各利益相关方的广泛声音，观点和关切。这些概念主导了可持续发展旅游业的讨论，并产生了合作理论以及各种类型的社区参与。西方和新兴经济体的许多学者都采用了这些概念。但是，关于它们如何在尼日利亚旅游业中应用的研究还很有限。因此，本探索性研究以东南地区为案例，探讨了尼日利亚旅游业发展中的合作和社区参与。在这一领域，旅游业处于发展的初期。该文件报告了与该地区旅游业利益相关者（传统统治者，男人，妇女和青年代表，首席牧师，安全人员和旅游官员）进行互动的访谈和焦点小组讨论。结果表明，尽管利益相关者愿意合作，但影响他们努力的挑战包括独裁的治理结构导致不信任，责任冲突，用于安全的资金不足，缺乏旅游意识以及几乎不尊重当地文化。本文的结论是，要发展一个居民友好型旅游目的地并保持协作和社区参与，利益相关者需要对旅游业进行教育并有参与规划的机会。和旅游官员）。结果表明，尽管利益相关者愿意合作，但影响他们努力的挑战包括独裁的治理结构导致不信任，责任冲突，用于安全的资金不足，缺乏旅游意识以及几乎不尊重当地文化。本文的结论是，要发展一个居民友好型旅游目的地并保持协作和社区参与，利益相关者需要对旅游业进行教育并有参与规划的机会。和旅游官员）。结果表明，尽管利益相关者愿意合作，但影响他们努力的挑战包括独裁的治理结构导致不信任，责任冲突，用于安全的资金不足，缺乏旅游意识以及几乎不尊重当地文化。本文的结论是，要发展一个居民友好型旅游目的地并保持协作和社区参与，利益相关者需要对旅游业进行教育，并有参与规划的机会。