Community Based Tourism
Finding the Euilibrium in the COMCEC Context
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1. EVOLUTION OF COMMUNITY-BASED TOURISM
Community-Based Tourism (CBT) was hailed by a long process of conceptual, philosophical
and managerial evolution in the areas of general resource management as well as tourism
resource management in the international arena. Below is a brief summary of
socioeconomic, political and intellectual phenomena that played a critical role in formation
of CBT as a tourism resource management paradigm for economic development of
localities.
Tourism has been a socioeconomic phenomenon that is both praised as a panacea for
benefits and blamed for the economic, social, environmental, and political perils it could
cause, particularly for the host community. Table 1 summarizes benefits and costs of
tourism.
Tourism academia, the United Nations, and the UN World Tourism Organization accept
tourism as an influential ambassador promoting cultural understanding, goodwill and
peace among different nations worldwide. The most important benefit is the economic
development through foreign dollars, tax revenues, foreign direct investment and new jobs
for the locals (Fleming and Toepper, 1990; Stynes, 2013). Tourism is also praised for its
role in increasing the awareness about environmental and socio-cultural matters,
particularly boosting local pride and cross-cultural understanding (Pearce, Moscardo, and
Ross, 1996).
However, tourism is also blamed for its role in several economic costs including increased
inflation, unequal distribution of economic benefits (leakage), low pay and seasonal jobs,
overuse of resources, rapid and short-term developments, increased cost of living,
increased cost of properties, as well as loss of jobs to outsiders (Wall and Mathieson, 2006).
In addition, tourism has been blamed for environmental, cultural, and social degradation.
(Weaver, 2006; Stabler, 1997).
Although positive impacts of tourism have been at the center in both developed and
developing countries, the concern about its negative impacts, especially its potential
damage on the locals’ well-being in the developing and less-developed countries have
resulted in shifts in resource management paradigms. These paradigm shifts were
supported by the continuing debates about Earth’s diminishing resources (Meadows et al,
1972), resulting in the concept of sustainability, requirements and indicators of
sustainability, with particular attention on the less developed areas and the Least
Developed Countries (the LDCs) (Hall, 2000; Stone and Stone, 2011).
1.1. Tourism Development and Impacts