Community Based Tourism
Finding the Euilibrium in the COMCEC Context
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Figure 1: Destination Product Life Cycle: Hypothetical Evolution of a Tourist Area (Butler
1980)
Implementation of CBT development at different stages of the Destination Product Life
Cycle would involve different tasks, stakeholders, facilitators and challenges. It is
questionable how many of the CBT principles are achievable if the region or community
already has existing tourism structure such as accommodation and dining facilities, travel
intermediary networks, tour guiding, etc. While such existing structures might facilitate an
increase in tourism inflow, they might also constitute a barrier to the required community
participation, ownership and control.
However, the general framework, concepts and principles can be applicable across
different destinations. The framework provided in Figure 2 is a comprehensive list of
phases, steps, activities, stakeholders and their roles if the destination of concern is to be
start from scratch when developing tourism with a CBT approach. Each case may have a
different starting point on this framework and may take different length of time to
complete each step. The starting point and the length of completion would depend on the
destination characteristics such as size, development phase, types of stakeholders, their
talents, skills, experience, commitment, time, patience, perseverance, besides the factors in
the larger environment (socioeconomic, cultural, economic, political, technical) and the
situational factors. Also, the movement on the CBT process steps may not always be
forward, linear and regular due to hurdles in the environment and challenges due to
stakeholder alienation, turnover, attrition and burnout. Therefore, CBT process needs to be
flexible, adaptive and responsive to such potential hurdles rather than a rigid plan;
otherwise, the entire plan may face the threat of stalling altogether.
For a successful CBT application, a marketing approach, more specifically CBT destination
brand development approach is required at every step of the development process
including research, SWOT analysis, marketing mix development, integrated marketing
communication, control and evaluation feeding back to the process to improve the CBT
destination brand. CBT has holistic goals that may sometimes be perceived as out of the
marketing realm; however, marketing approach is the key to success in any endeavor that
includes demand and supply of products in any form.