The Routledge Handbook of Community Based Tourism Management

Concepts, Issues & Implications

Sandeep Kumar Walia, Sandeep Kumar Walia

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000222128
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Hostelería, viajes y turismo

This Handbook offers an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of core themes and concepts in community-based tourism management. Providing interdisciplinary insights from leading international scholars, this is the first book to critically examine the current status of community-based tourism.

Organised into five parts, the Handbook provides cutting-edge perspectives on issues such as Indigenous communities, tourism and the environment, sustainability, and the impact of digital communities. Part 1 introduces core concepts and methodologies, and distinguishes community products from other tourism and hospitality goods. Part 2 explores communities' attitudes towards tourism development and their engagement with and ownership of the process. It also delves into the role of community- based tourism, under the influence of governmental policies, in the economic and social development of a region. In Part 3 various management, marketing, and branding initiatives are identified as a means of expanding the tourism business. Part 4 examines the negative impacts of mass tourism and its threats to culture, tradition, identity, the built environment, and natural heritage. In the final and fifth part, future challenges and opportunities for community-based tourism initiatives are considered, and research-based sustainable solutions are proposed. Overall, the book considers engaging local populations in tourism development as a way of building stronger and more resilient communities.

This Handbook fills a void in the current research and thus will appeal to scholars, students, and practitioners interested in tourism management, tourism geography, business studies, development policy and practice, regional development, conservation, and sustainability.

PART 1
Introduction to community-based tourism & community-based tourism initiatives

The handbook opens with Part 1, which introduces the reader to community-based tourism (CBT) and its initiatives. This part contains nine chapters and illustrates the conceptual, methodological and applied base of community-based tourism and its associated initiatives from tourism perspectives. It further elaborates on the different conceptual models and theoretical backgrounds of community-based tourism, and differentiates community products from other tourism and hospitality goods/products. The behavioural intentions and their implications are also dealt with, along with the ethical and cross-cultural issues of community-based tourism. This part also explains the changing dimensions of community-based tourism and its relationship with policy, the planning of tourism in communities and community well-being. Various authors/researchers contribute papers that focus not only on drafting the role of the community but also on highlighting the numerous concepts and trends associated with it. The objective of this part is to provide readers with insights into the issues and concerns of communities which are involved in tourism, either indirectly or directly, thereby providing or analyzing various theories, philosophies, policies and frameworks.

The first chapter, titled “Community-Based Tourism: A Preamble from Literature” written by Dr Sandeep Kumar Walia, tries to lay down the foundation of community-based tourism. It focusses on various associated concepts of local communities in tourism and their role in tourism development. The chapter begins with an intense review of various approaches and theories as applied by researchers to investigate the topic. Despite the fact that the outcomes of available studies about residents and their role in the development of tourism have mostly been convincing, further research into the community perspective with respect to the travel industry’s growth under various settings and types of development is suggested.

Considering the complex systems and insights of planning theory in tourism planning and local community development, Chapter 2, entitled “Harmonic Tourism Methodology: A Proposal for Tourism Planning in Rural Communities,” written by Yanelli Daniela Palmas Castrejón, Rocío del Carmen Serrano-Barquín and Alberto Amore, presents and applies the Harmonic Tourism Methodology as an alternative to community-based and community-led tourism planning, thus offering a viable approach to community-based tourism that may further help in generating more resilient and sustainable tourism development.

Similarly, Chapter 3, “Overview of Community-Based Tourism: From History to Evaluation Framework,” by Yusuke Ishihara serves as a source to revive and review the concept of Community-Based Tourism, along with critical issues, such as its history, definition, central idea, implementation and the evaluative framework attached to it. In view of current trends in the fields of tourism and international development, the author has also discussed and provided a knowledge-based platform for broader perspectives of CBT.

Moving ahead to other aspects, in Chapter 4, another two authors, Aruditya Jasrotia and Amit Gangotia, have drafted and analyzed factors that act as facilitators and inhibitors to community-based tourism. The authors, in their study “Understanding the Facilitators and Inhibitors of Community-Based Tourism: A Case Study of Dharamshala,” take a dimensional look at the concept, supporting the theory that community-based tourism can have a vivacious role in encouraging community participation in the unprejudiced development of the local community. The study integrates the concepts of poverty mitigation, CBT and tourism development to explain the successful establishment of community-based tourism in Dharamshala, which can further be taken up by authorities in other destinations to follow up the necessary practices for sustained tourism development.

However any research cannot said to be completed without the analyzing the of previous literature and researches conducted in the targeted field, to which the Chapter 5 by Luciana Aparecida Barbieri da Rosa et al. (“A Longitudinal Study of Articles Published on Community-Based Tourism and Sustainable Development: Reflections and their Applicabilities in the Scope and on Web of Science Databases for the Period from 1998 to 2018”) is endorsed with the literature and the characteristics of publications related to the theme, community-based tourism and sustainable development in the Scopus and Web of Science database from 1998 to 2018, at the theoretical and empirical debates.

CBT has gained prominence over the last 20 years because it is considered one pathway to sustainable tourism development. It assumes that community participation in tourism is desirable; empowering community members to engage in the development and management of this kind of tourism fosters sustainability both in cultural and in economic terms. In contrast to this, Chapter 7, written by Carla Guerrón Montero, Laura Santos and Daniele Santos, and entitled “Ethno-Ecological Community-Based Tourism from Within: Quilombo Tourism and the Quest for Sustainability in Brazil,” proposes that the model developed at Campinho, defined as ethno-ecological community-based tourism by quilombola members, provides an exemplified outlook on CBT.

Further considering the societal aspects of tourism, Verónica Mora-Jácome, Christian Viñán-Merecí and Alex-Paúl Ludeña-Reyes, in their chapter “Local Culture, Society and Resources as Products for Tourism Development at ‘El Cisne’ Parish,” analyze the current situation of the “El Cisne” parish, based on local culture, society and resources as well as the type of tourism that can be developed here, looking at the consequences of tourism on the basis of sustainable development by conducting the bibliographic review with respect to state of tourism the criteria for integration and sustainability was analyzed that can be assumed by the host communities.

Similarly, Sónia Moreira Cabeça’s research in Chapter 9, “Community-Based Tourism, a Means Toward Cultural Heritage Preservation: The Case Of Cante Alentejano (Alentejo, Portugal),” explains intangible cultural heritage and safeguarding requirements through community involvement and, from the tourism point of view, of community-based tourism. Lastly, Octavio Barrientos, Glen Croy, Jagjit Plahe and Peter Holland’s chapter “Social Movements and Community-Based Tourism: The Case of Pichilemu” profiles the targeted area in comparison to the theorised understanding of social movements and over-tourism, and demonstrates the emergence of the CBT enterprise.

Sandeep Kumar Walia

1
Community-based tourism
A preamble from literature

Sandeep Kumar Walia

1.1 Introduction

The tourism industry is drafting out a role for itself as a major part of economic development in the world, particularly to the developing nations. Organizers and planners who have considered the economy solely on the basis of “brick and mortar” stores have begun to consider the travel industry a sensible framework with conventional ventures. At the same time, residents in various regions are encountering the consequences of the travel industry establishing itself in their home regions. To attain support for travel industry ventures and activities, various organizers and planners have attempted to understand how the general public reacts to the influence that tourism can have on development. It can bloom when the local population of a community is inclined towards it and when its members have positive perceptions towards tourists and the development of this industry. This positivism in the community also depends on whether its members see themselves taking part in the development process of tourism. This is where the concept of community-based tourism (CBT) comes in: where tourism activities are owned and managed by the community, and all the benefits are delivered to and focussed on them (Goodwin & Santilli, 2009). When a particular destination is introduced, the life quality of the local community goes through some transformations in attitudes towards tourism. CBT is actually a multi-ethnic framework used to grow economies, both urban and rural, thus providing communities with prospects for enhanced livelihood (Anuar & Sood, 2017).

There is wide accord in the literature concerning the need to understand the host community’s disposition toward travel industry development (Gursoy & Rutherford, 2004; Chen & Chen, 2010; Choi & Murray, 2010; Wang & Chen, 2015). Communities, especially in developing nations, are considered generally unacquainted with the costs and complexity associated with rapid tourism development in their areas (Rosenow & Pulsipher, 1979).While this is a prominent part of the literature (for instance Oviedo-Garcia et al., 2008; Chen & Chen, 2010; Nunkoo & Gursoy, 2012; Woosnam, 2012; Vargas-Sánchez et al., 2015; Wang & Chen, 2015; Almeida-García et al., 2016), there is still some uncertainty around this matter; more analysis is needed, in more diverse places, particularly with respect to local communities and using new research methodologies (Gursoy & Rutherford, 2004; Vargas-Sánchez et al., 2011; Nunkoo et al., 2013; Sharpley, 2014).

1.2 Finding space for community in tourism: community-based tourism

Tourism is always viewed as a source of financial development by the local populations of a community as it incorporates different components that enhance their personal satisfaction as well as the development process of natural and cultural resources (Kandampully, 2000; Andereck et al., 2005). Despite these benefits, it has also led to negative consequences on local populations’ personal satisfaction, e.g., a rising cost of basic items, wrongdoings, changes in local peoples’ ways of life, transportation and parking issues, etc. (Brunt & Courtney, 1999; Brunt & Hambly, 1999; Tosun, 2002). Because of the outgoing influence of tourism, destinations representations have significant influences on the loc...