Coping with seasonality: A case study of family owned micro tourism businesses in Obudu Mountain Resort in Nigeria

• Obudu Mountain Resort and the family tourism businesses in its host communities experience extreme seasonality.
• Obudu Mountain Resort experiences three peak periods all in the dry season.
• Seasonality in off-peak seriously affects family business operators and business operations.
• The operators of family owned micro tourism businesses have similar and differing coping strategies.
• "Familiness" of family tourism business has the potential of reducing seasonality effects in off-peak.

Seasonality in tourism has attracted much attention from tourism management stakeholders due to the important role it plays in destinations sustainability. It is also recognised to have significant effects on tourism business survivability and sustainability. Despite this recognition, there has been a paucity of research on its effects on family owned micro tourism businesses and how they cope in tropical climate regions of developing countries. Using a qualitative research strategy, a total of 27 semi-structured interviews were conducted with family members in micro tourism businesses in the host communities of Obudu Mountain Resort in Nigeria. The finding reveals that Obudu Mountain Resort and the existing family owned micro tourism businesses experiences extreme seasonality. This has serious effects on business operations and family survival as a majority of the operators depend solely on the businesses. Unlike the practice in the majority of the destinations located in temperate climate regions, all the family owned micro tourism businesses in Obudu Mountain Resort environment stay open throughout the year, regardless of the fall in tourists' flow in off-peak; adopting similar and varying coping strategies. Despite the challenges of off-peak periods, the "familiness" of family tourism business has shown to have the potential of reducing the effects of seasonality in rural peripheral tourist destination.