Location: Community-Based Tourism

Discussion: TRUE Community-Based TourismReported This is a featured thread

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rogerharris38
rogerharris38
TRUE Community-Based Tourism
Sep 23 2009, 4:33 AM EDT | Post edited: Sep 23 2009, 4:33 AM EDT
I attended a tourism conference recently that claimed to focus on Community Based Tourism (CBT). Actually most of the presentations and people attending worked for travel operators that were based in cities and who sent tourists into rural areas where they stayed in lodges that were owned and managed by the travel operators but who hired local residents as staff. They call this community-based tourism. I don’t!!

For me, TRUE CBT occurs when the residents of a destination own and operate their own tourism facilities and therefore earn the largest possible proportion of revenues derived from tourism in their area. Often, and in its purest form, this is in the form of homestays, where visitors stay in the houses of the residents as paying guests and they take the opportunity to learn about the cultures and lifestyles of their hosts, perhaps even participating in their daily living activities.

Such tourism has been proven to be capable of generating incomes for poor rural residents that provide important supplements to their agricultural-based livelihoods. However, and most interestingly, the rural residents that I work with who provide these kinds of travel experiences tell me that while the additional income is useful, they mostly value the interactions that they enjoy with their visitors, especially those from overseas. So it’s a doubly rewarding experience and when organised in this way, it fosters close and memorable encounters between people from starkly different backgrounds which lead to mutual respect and understanding.

When you stay in someone’s house you become their guest and the relationship is quite different to the experience a traveller gets when she stays in a lodge. In so-called community-lodges, the relationship between the host and the guest is that of an employer-employee, as in a hotel, and the encounter has a completely different outcome than a homestay. See http://www.asianencounters.org for a better taste. Do you find this valuable?    
agricolus
agricolus
1. RE: TRUE Community-Based Tourism
Sep 24 2009, 1:05 PM EDT | Post edited: Sep 24 2009, 1:05 PM EDT
Dear Roger.
I share your observation that most of the so called CBT projects are in some ways linked to mediators. But I see many good reasons why this is so.
Operators or outside agents CAN
a) facilitate linking tourists to the places,e.g. by attending international travel shows and meeting up with operators
b) integrate CBT into tours whereas a stand-alone project is not justifying (overseas) travel to often remote areas
c) bring in a professionalism that in communities is not (yet) available. For example: Can they organise reliable transport from the next railway head or airline to the place.
d) stand for credibility and liability, which is a crucial point for (international) travellers
e) generate visitor numbers / business volume to break even or even make profit
f) communicate well in the language of the travellers
g) be a buffer between communities and tourists - having a critical distance to say "no, sorry, you're not welcome"
h) establish systems that allow for avoiding any money flow in the CBT project - which can be a good way to block negative impacts of tourism

I appreciate the approach of Asian Encounters and even more the discussion that you started.
"Outsiders" are not a must but can be a very helpful tool. In a way Asian Encounters is as well an outside tool supporting and promoting CBT projects and ensuring many points that I made above. CBT can only work, if we include all the players in tourism business who are committed to the values of a just and responsible tourism.

One last thought: How many international travellers can find <a href="http://www.pension-eberswalde.de/"> such homestay without external support? They can sustain because a homestay in Germany is in comparison to CBT in many countries is not really addressing international travellers.

 Do you find this valuable?