This paper investigated the influence of Transportation infrastructure on sustainable tourism development with the moderation effect of Logistics Optimization. The paper aimed to test three alternative hypotheses: transport infrastructure has a positive significant influence on sustainable tourism development; Logistics Optimization has a positive significant influence on sustainable tourism development and Logistics Optimization has moderation positive influence on the link between transport infrastructure and sustainable tourism development. This paper is guided by resource orchestration theory and coordination theory. This is a cross-sectional study and the data were collected from work-in tourists at Ngongoro conservation area in Tanzania, where questionnaire survey was administered with the tourists and interviews were carried out with transporters. Systematic random sampling was used for tourists’ participation while interview was administered with tourist vehicle drivers representing transporting agencies. The data were collected from 130 tourists and 16 drivers; the data were analyzed using structural equation modelling (SEM) with the aid of SPSS. TINF with (β= 0. 3551 and P=0. 0000), LOPT (β= 0. 2894 and P=0. 0000), and Int₁ (β= 0. 1647 and P=0. 0016). The findings portray positive and significant influence of TINF on STD and positive and significant influence of LOPT on STD, and LOPT showing positive and significant moderating influence on the link between TINF and STD. from the findings it is recommended that transportation infrastructure need enhancement from all the necessary dimensions and policy makers to strategically consider this important aspect of tourism and collaborate with logistics service provide for improvement and for stakeholders in tourism sector to consider a crucial aspect in tourism development. Logistics optimization in the process can automatically improve the efficiency in the link between transportation infrastructure and sustainable tourism development. Future studies may be carried out on how to enhance collaboration between private owned facilities and government strategic direction on improving tourism sector in Tanzania.
Rutaba et al. (Thu,) studied this question.