Community-based tourism (CBT) offers a promising avenue for sustainable development by leveraging local resources, both natural and cultural, to empower communities. Theoretically, CBT holds the potential to effectively manage natural resources while preserving socio-cultural heritage, thereby fostering social and economic benefits for local communities. This chapter reviews 20 case studies about different CBT projects implemented in different regions of the world of developing countries, with the objective of understanding their flaws, strengths, and challenges, and to contribute to the practice of future projects. After going through the main concepts treated by the research, the conclusions and discussion manifested, stating that one of the main challenges of CBT is for stakeholders to give the appropriate amount of help, but also providing training on tourism and business managerial skills, so that there is no dependency, and residents can sustain and uphold a business on their own. Finally, the limitations of the present work and recommendations for future studies are given.
TopIntroduction
Community-based tourism has been a point of interest in the tourism community for a few years now. But for some the question that remains is, what is community-based tourism really? Following Author Potjana Suansri, founder of Thailand Community Based Tourism Institute,The answer should be a question. “How can tourism contribute to the community development process?” (Suansri, 2003, p. 11). If that is what it does, it qualifies as community-based tourism. It has been taken up in the tourism community as a part of sustainable tourism developments which aim to minimize the social-cultural and environmental impacts due to tourism (Amerta, 2018). This partially happened because of increased concerns about overtourism, cultural commodification, and environmental degradation, which was shown by the European parliament in a research requested by the TRAN committee (Peeters,et al. 2018). As a sustainable alternative, community- tourism has caught the eye of many communities as well as researchers. Authors have researched the field of community-based tourism (CBT) from the early stages, when the concept of CBT was still in the hands of communities and individual entrepreneurs (Murphy, 1985). When the possible profits, benefits and the threats of CBT became more apparent, it became part of governmental tourism policies. Resulting into the tourism sector becoming a big part of the global GDP, reaching around 10.4%, increasing to over a billion tourists (World Tourism Organisation, 2019).
The core of community-based tourism represents a shift from traditional mass tourism models by prioritizing community benefits, cultural preservation, and nature preservation, all coming down to sustainability (Suansri, 2003). Next, the aim to benefit guests and the community is an important bullet point within the strategy. While these increasing numbers come with more profit and more work opportunities, in some cases, these high numbers can also damage nature, culture, and habitation (Juma & Khademi-Vidr, 2019). Since community-based tourism is more drawn to preserving culture while still profiting from income, many countries have decided to invest in this tourism development (Salazar, 2010). Over the years, research has been done on creating effective models within CBT concerning citizens' involvement while trying to avoid mass tourism and ensure nature preservation (López-Guzmán, Sánchez-Cañizares & Pavón, 2011). The importance of community-based tourism in this new world of touristic development is made clear by the benefits of nature and culture preservation combined with community control and participation as described previously. However, despite countless models and case studies, the question of correctly introducing CBT into a community seems to remain unanswered. Even existing community-based tourism projects seem to struggle to introduce the concept to its citizens when looking into the twenty case studies around the world. Unclear seems to be where the responsibility lies for this correct introduction, and how can citizens be motivated to put all their work and effort into the tourism field?
This research chapter delves into the flaws and strengths of community-based tourism, drawing from a wide range of case studies across the globe. Starting with the methods used to successfully perform this research, this chapter is then followed by a deep literature review giving a theoretical framework in the form of a CBT model to follow up on that with the comparison of twenty case studies. Within the literature reviewed, the missing data subject is considered. The lack of precise data, be it financial, environmental, or cultural, hampers communities from gauging the success or failure of their projects, identifying areas for improvement, or capitalizing on local profit potential. A conclusion is drawn at the end of the paper, including practical suggestions for improvement throughout the aspects seen within the case studies.