A study on awareness of the homestay program among the society in Papar district Sabah / Callistina Anthony

Homestays as the term suggested means staying in someones' home. A typical homestay program introduced by the Malaysia's Ministry of Tourism is actually a program that allows tourists, local or foreign, to stay with a host family and be part of the family and their community to experience the local culture first hand. This paper is to study how far the people in Papar district are aware of Homestay program and its' benefit to them on their involvement with Homestay program. It is important to know about this Homestay program, because it will give benefit to people and our country. Primary method is used for this research to get information about Homestay program. As we know this program is new activities especially in villages and the literature review will explain what people said about this Homestay program. The research will be performed to answer the objective of this study on homestay. Through the findings and recommendations of this research that the tourism industry will be able to implement the appropriate or effective methods to communicate to the people especially the rural area, to create their awareness of this program and will answer the call of the government to eradicate poverty, raising their income, to improve economic standard of living and creating job opportunities as well as human capital development. Now the government has introduced the "Sabah Development Corridor" and one of the activities is promoting Tourism in which Homestay program is included in the Tourism Industry.