Community Based Tourism
Finding the Euilibrium in the COMCEC Context
5
returned to the local economy as it is spent over and over
again.
 Helps attract additional businesses and services to
support the tourist industry.
 Is labor-intensive.
 Earns valuable foreign exchange.
 Increases commercial and residential development.
skills to fill the better paid management positions.
 Tourist numbers can be adversely affected by events beyond the
control of the destination e.g. terrorism, economic recession. This is
a big problem in the LDCs dependent on tourism.
 Tourism follows a "product life cycle", with a final stage of decline,
where the destination no longer offers new attractions for the
tourist, and the quality has diminished with the rise of competition
and tourist saturation.
Source: Adapted fro
The need for development in social, environmental, ecological, and economic domains at
both the macro (destination and society) and micro levels (households and individuals),
initiated a top-down process of discussions about development. Development from the top,
initiated, planned and executed by authorities, have been found to result in unforeseen and
undesired results or side-effects (Aronsson, 2000). A more holistic and comprehensive
approach to development requires involvement of the locals. This holistic perspective in
defining development led to the emergence of the sustainable development concept,
involving the concepts of social justice and human rights, aiming development in all
domains, at macro and micro levels, and requiring participation of both rich and poor for
achieving sustainability of resources for future generations. Hence, starting with the UN
Conference in 1972, and followed by the Brundtland Report in 1987 and Agenda 21 in
1992, sustainability with a focus on community participation and locals’ ability to control
and manage their resources gained importance in economic development (Hall, 2000;
Stone and Stone, 2011).
The same paradigm shift is observed in natural and socio-cultural resource management in
tourism. The heightened awareness of the negative impacts of mass tourism to popular
tourist destinations (mostly sea-sand-sun) in the international tourism arena lead to a
search for alternative approaches to tourism resource management, resulting in
sustainable tourism with attention to biodiversity conservation and community
development (de Kadt, 1979; Smith, 1977; Turner and Ash, 1975). The 1980s witnessed
heightened level of knowledge and practice of community involvement in tourism in which
locals were considered as a key factor in developing and sustaining the tourism products
and resources (Stone and Stone, 2011).
Rapid and large scale growth due to mass tourism is known to induce negative impacts in
less developed areas due to lack of resources (financial, human, know-how, experience)
and infrastructure. Therefore, development is hampered by the economic leakage in
several different ways. Economic leakage may be caused by heavy investment of outside
investors. Furthermore, there may be a rapid change in social norms, cultural values,
pollution, and degradation on the environment. For positive long-term benefits of tourism
in less developed areas, tourism development is recommended to take place slowly thus
allowing the local community to learn, develop experience, capital, knowledge and know-
how, make necessary adjustments, and grow along with tourism growth. Sustainable
tourism is considered to be possible with such a healthy development (Aronsson, 2000).
1.3. Paradigm Shift in Tourism Resource Management: Sustainable Tourism