Community Based Tourism
Finding the Euilibrium in the COMCEC Context
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understood to be managed and owned by the community, for the community. It is
a form of ‘local’ tourism, favouring local service providers and suppliers and
focused on interpreting and communicating the local culture and environment”
(p.2)
Kibicho (2010) “Empowering local people by generating employment opportunities, thereby
improving their incomes and developing their skills and institutions” (p.212).
Zapata et al (2011) “Any business organisational form grounded on the property and self-
management of the community’s patrimonial assets, according to democratic and
solidarity practices; and on the distribution of the benefits generated by the
supply of tourist services, with the aim at supporting intercultural quality
meetings with the visitors” (p.727).
Salazar (2011) “Aims to create a more sustainable tourism industry (at least discursively),
focusing on the receiving communities in terms of planning and maintaining
tourism development” (p.10).
Resonsibletravel.com
(2013)
“Tourism in which local residents (often rural, poor and economically
marginalized) invite tourists to visit their communities with the provision of
overnight accommodation.”
Kyrgyz CBT Association
(2013)
“The practice of providing natural, value-packed travel services that utilize local
accommodation, food, music, art, crafts and traditions.”
Thailand CBT Institute
(2013)
“Tourism that takes environmental, social and cultural sustainability into
account. It is managed and owned by the community, for the community, with the
purpose of enabling visitors to increase their awareness and learn about the
community and local ways of life.”
SNV-(Netherlands
Development
Organization) and
University of Hawaii
(2013)
“A type of sustainable tourism that promotes pro-poor strategies in a community
setting. CBT initiatives aim to involve local residents in the running and
management of small tourism projects as a means of alleviating poverty and
providing an alternative income source for community members” (p.9).
World Bank (2013) “Community driven development aims at giving a voice to the stakeholders,
involve them in identifying their own needs and the ensuing decision making,
encourage them to take responsibility, and mobilize the majority of actors in a
given community through a participatory process.”
1.5.1. Characteristics of Community-Based Tourism
Since CBT is originally conceptualized as a means of economic development for
underdeveloped localities, its target groups’ descriptors naturally include remote, rural,
impoverished, marginalized, economically depressed, undeveloped, poor, indigenous,
ethnic minority, and people in small towns. These communities are likely have a
traditional, participatory or agricultural economic system in which work, goods and