Community Based Tourism
Finding the Euilibrium in the COMCEC Context
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Continuous research is required for all management and marketing activities to anchor in
intelligent decision-making. Research is needed to generate information (socio-cultural,
environmental and economic impacts) for control, monitoring, and improvement to ensure
enterprise and business sustainability. Also, research is needed to generate information
(resident culture, attitude, perception, opinion, etc.) to assure local participation and
equity. Furthermore, research is critical to generate information (customer perception,
satisfaction, image, etc.) for consumer satisfaction and loyalty.
Strategic partnerships and networking are the two keywords that appear throughout
diverse resources investigated in the study. One of the findings of the study is the lack of
information from the COMCEC Member Countries, which is a clear symptom of lack of
networking. Some COMCEC Member Countries have their own information sharing tools
such as CBT Association websites; however, the endeavor is not consistent or integrated
across the COMCEC region. Therefore, it is essential for the COMCEC Member Countries to
invest time, energy and finances to develop the most effective and critical means of
achieving information networks and strategic partnerships.
The most convenient action is to develop a website specifically devoted to a CBT endeavor
of the COMCEC (similar to that of Thailand and Kyrgyzstan), inclusive of all member
countries. Besides, online social media platforms (e.g. LinkedIn) and list servers (similar to
ATLAS and TRINET) need to be developed to enable sharing of information, know-how and
experience among practitioners, researchers and academia in the COMCEC Countries as
well as the other countries. All these interactive communication channels may be
integrated into the COMCEC website (by adding the links and icons) for public awareness,
attention and participation, effectively and efficiently.
Since the COMCEC Strategy identifies the CBT as one of its output areas under tourism
cooperation, the COMCEC Tourism Working Groups, envisaged by the Strategy for its
implementation, would be very instrumental for sharing knowledge and experience in CBT
practices as well as networking among the COMCEC member countries. In addition to this,
COMCEC Project Cycle Management (PCM) provides grant-based financing to the
multilateral cooperation projects. COMCEC PCM can be utilized by the member countries
and relevant OIC institutions to implement CBT programs and projects in the member
countries.
5.4. Immediate Actions for the COMCEC Member Countries