Inhibitors to host community participation in sustainable tourism development in developing countries

The involvement of host communities (or destination residents), particularly in developing countries, is critical to the success of tourism development and to the creation of a “Just Destination”. This paper investigates host community perceptions about obstacles to their participation in tourism development in Lombok, Indonesia, providing new insights into institutional influences on tourism opportunities and issues. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques targeted separate groups of destination residents who live in a developed tourism destination, a less developed tourism destination, a remote rural village far away from tourism destinations, as well as a group of university students. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, qualitative questionnaires and observation, and were analysed using content analysis. Results show three main institutional factors inhibit host community participation in tourism: tourism agencies, private sector providers and tourism infrastructure, and perceptions of the negative impacts of tourism. The underperformance of state tourism agencies and private sector providers resulted in a lack of tourism infrastructure and limitations on host community opportunities to participate in tourism development and businesses. The findings suggest the need for improvement in the training of state tourism agency employees, better coordination among government agencies, and improved education and training for tourism operators.     

Bibliometric analysis and literature review of ecotourism: Toward sustainable development

In recent decades, rising consumer interest in visiting relatively less commercialized natural destinations has facilitated the growth of ecotourism. Yet the research on ecotourism is fragmented, presenting gaps in the current understanding of this topic. This study performs a bibliometric analysis to assimilate the present knowledge from a total of 878 articles published in six reputable outlets between 1990 and 2019. The study analyzed citation chains and coauthorship networks to acknowledge contributions from select authors, organizations, and countries. Next, a cocitation analysis of the prior literature identified four major thematic areas: ecological preservation, residents' interests, the carbon footprint, and tourists' behaviors. Further, a dynamic cocitation analysis technique mapped the development of these thematic areas. Subsequently, a content analysis of the four thematic areas delivered significant insights about prior research in the domain and indicated future avenues of research.     

Indigenous ecotourism in the Mayan rainforest of Palenque: empowerment issues in sustainable development

Indigenous ecotourism in the Mayan rainforest has received little research attention. This study examines issues related to the level of empowerment in a Mayan village located near the Palenque World Heritage Site in southern Mexico. An adapted empowerment framework was used to assess community empowerment and its relationship with stakeholders’ participation by collecting the views of internal and external stakeholders in indigenous ecotourism. Using a checklist of 60 empowerment indicators, the study developed a wheel of empowerment tool that graphically illustrates and compares levels of empowerment/disempowerment in local communities. Results indicate that although there is a will from many villagers to participate in tourism, lack of knowledge, limited economic resources and the poor negotiation skills of local leaders have disempowered the community from undertaking ecotourism ventures. Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have not supported the community until recently, the private sector has played little part, and while the Mexican government is shaping the course of indigenous ecotourism with support programmes, state agencies have resisted local ecotourism development. Overall, the community fell below the midpoint on the Wheel of Empowerment Scale. These findings show a need for more effective empowerment strategies to maximise community involvement in managing cultural and natural resources for tourism development.     

An educational simulation tool for integrated coastal tourism development in developing countries

In spite of the importance of coastal tourism for the economies of many developing countries, tourism infrastructure has often been developed without full consideration of long-term impacts on the environment. The simulation model presented in this paper aims to address critical gaps in awareness and capacity for integrated decision-making and planning in tourism infrastructure development in a developing country context. We build a simple closed-loop model of tourism infrastructure investment, which integrates typical economic, social and ecological dimensions of the problem. The model is calibrated so that within 20 years, investment projects in tourist capacity done without concomitant investment in solid waste and wastewater treatment result in a collapse of fish stocks and a sharp drop in tourist attendance. The model includes several policy options that allow users to intervene at various points in the loop, allowing stakeholders to explore how various combinations of policies perform in financial, environmental and social terms over the long period. The model can, therefore, be used as an educational tool for training and capacity-building.     

A framework toward sustainable ecotourism value chain in the Philippines

Philippine tourism growth is largely driven by visits to natural attractions. Addressing concerns on sustainability, environmental conservation, and local community involvement has become increasingly challenging. We identify the critical players in the industry and create a value chain framework for Philippine ecotourism that incorporates the quadruple bottom-line strategy to understand how sustainable tourism is being practiced among value chain participants. Findings have implications in the pursuit of sustainable ecotourism development in the country.     

Applying the resilience principles for sustainable ecotourism development: A case study of the Nakdong Estuary,South Korea

When studying sustainable ecotourism, the ecotourism system can be better understood as a complex association of various elements that affects the local society and wildlife habitats. The purpose of this study is to plan an ecotourism system for the wise ecotourism resource management of estuary wetlands by using a resilience principle-based systems thinking approach. This study suggests an integrated management plan that considers diversity, connectivity, learning, participation, and polycentric governance to solve universal and important issues, such as estuary dam removal, urbanization, and natural resource use in the estuary's social-ecological system. The ecotourism system plans suggested in this study include minimizing ecological conflict and load through an improved sense of responsibility among stakeholders and strengthened protective activities. The results of this study suggest appropriate roles for various stakeholders in the management of tourism resources that can be used to establish new guidelines for ecotourism destination planning.     

Tourism education for developing countries

The components of the tourism system of a developing country show greater internal sensitivity than those of a developed country. The host-community in itself acts as a tourist attraction and changes associated with development may reduce this attraction. R. Howell, Associate Professor, and M. Uysal, Assistant Professor, at Clemson University, Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, explain how education for tourism in developing countries must be tailored to meet their special needs.     

Tourism as a factor in development cooperation

Where there is little or no industrial or agricultural base, and no exploitable resource, tourism may make a significant contribution to the economy of a developing country. The EEC provides aid to developing countries in three areas - the southern Mediterranean; Asia and Latin America; and Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. The Commission has produced guidelines for drawing up proposals and a typical example is presented in this article. The EEC also supplies high quality expertise to help define policy options and strategic plans and carry out agreed programmes. Long-term success is more likely for specialized high-income projects.     

Domestic tourism as a development factor

Archer, Brian H., “Domestic Tourism as a Development Factor”, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. V, No. 1, January/March 1978, pp. 126–141. Domestic tourism brings about an intermingling of people from diverse social and cultural backgrounds and also a considerable redistribution of spending power. Although this paper concentrates mainly upon the economic effects created by the growth of domestic tourism and is illustrated by reference to some recent case studies, attention is also drawn to the favorable and unfavorable political, social, cultural, moral, environmental and conservational aspects of domestic tourism. The paper concludes by discussing some ways in which domestic tourism can provide an impetus to further economic growth in the holiday regions and also how domestic tourism may assist in solving some of the problems facing a country's international tourism.     

Limits to community participation in the tourism development process in developing countries

This study deals with a normative concept of participatory development approach, which originates in the developed world. In particular, it analyses and explains the limitations to the participatory tourism development approach in the context of developing countries. It was found that there are operational, structural and cultural limits to community participation in the TDP in many developing countries although they do not equally exist in every tourist destination. Moreover, while these limits tend to exhibit higher intensity and greater persistence in the developing world than in the developed world, they appear to be a reflection of prevailing socio-political, economic and cultural structure in many developing countries. On the other hand, it was also found that although these limitations may vary over time according to types, scale and levels of tourism development, the market served, and cultural attributes of local communities, forms and scale of tourism developed are beyond the control of local communities. It concludes that formulating and implementing the participatory tourism development approach requires a total change in socio-political, legal, administrative and economic structure of many developing countries, for which hard political choices and logical decisions based on cumbersome social, economic and environmental trade-offs are sine qua non alongside deliberate help, collaboration and co-operation of major international donor agencies, NGOs, international tour operators and multinational companies.     

Social planning for tourism in the developing countries

The usual perspectives on tourism planning have been economic. This paper argues for the need to take much more explicit account of non-economic costs (and benefits) in this field, and links the discussion to questions that have preoccupied those concerned with general issues of development in recent years. It emphasises that planners act in specific socio-politocal contexts, and that it is especially the dynamics of class structures and theis expression in the power relations at local and national levels which influence outcomes in this field. Practical issues of social planning for tourism are discussed, and the dangers of development which is too massive and too fast are stressed. Some attention is also paid to the role of transnational enterprises in the tourism field, and to the question of bargaining at the international level.     

Compassion as a neglected motivator for sustainable tourism

Compassion is defined and identified in this paper as a powerful and universal motivator for actions that could help attain sustainable outcomes and enable aspirational forms of sustainable tourism, including just tourism, hopeful tourism and enlightened mass tourism that have not yet demonstrated real-world traction. Despite its potential, compassion has been neglected in the tourism literature. This paper reviews the 50-year quest for a “better tourism”, and presents a compassion-scape as a comprehensive and systematic framework for facilitating sector engagement with compassion. “Context” factors associated with tourism settings (e.g. level of development, purpose) and agents (e.g. mindset, psychographics, motivations) influence “encounter” elements, such as the relationship, type and distress characteristics. Subsequent “response” factors, such as type, recipient, timeframe and intention, influence the “implications” for sustainable tourism, which in turn affect the types of “intervention” (e.g. mindful interpretation, social marketing, faith injunction) implemented to achieve sustainable outcomes. The many innate methodological challenges for the researcher in measuring compassion are discussed, along with the issues involved in operationalizing the compassion-scape to engage and reform alternative tourism forms, notably volunteer tourism, pro-poor tourism, religious tourism and fair trade tourism as well as conventional mass tourism. A paper for the thinking reader.     

Government involvement in tourism in developing countries

The article examines the case for involvement of government in the tourism sector in developing countries and makes definitional distinctions between passive and active involvement. It is argued that in most developing countries government involvement in tourism is required not only to attain long-term objectives but to compensate for the absence of a strong and tourism-experienced private sector. Five areas of concern for government involvement are discussed, and conclusions relate to the need for government-private sector cooperation for development purposes.     

Transformative travel as a sustainable market niche for protected areas: a new development,marketing and conservation model

Many protected areas worldwide are mandated to provide visitor enjoyment and sustainable heritage conservation but face growing challenges and competition. To satisfy modern aspirational markets, parks must design meaningful experiences delivering long-lasting participant benefits that cultivate visitation rates and a conservation constituency. Transformative travel can deliver such benefits through participants’ psycho-physiological transformation but market insights critical for experience development in parks are lacking. Our systematic quantitative review of 126 transformative travel articles provides those insights, linking experiential characteristics, participant traits and motivations to experience outcomes according to five transformative travel typologies pertinent to parks: health and wellness, nature-based physical activity, spiritual, cultural and volunteering travel. We identified 35 travel motivations, 14 participant traits and 23 experience characteristics linked to transformation and 28 purposefully or incidentally realised benefits. Transformative travel improved participants’ psychological, physiological, social, economic and environmental conditions, as well as satisfaction with and destination loyalty towards parks. Socio-demographic characteristics and propensity for independent versus social travel shaped choice of travel experience. Our results are uniquely conceptualised in a transformative travel framework and transformative market niche model which we apply to sustainable experience development and marketing in parks. We identify implementation possibilities and areas for future research and monitoring.     

The use of investment incentives for tourism projects in developing countries

The use of investment incentives to attract capital finance is common to both developed and developing countries. This article (a) examines the reasons why investment incentives are offered, (b) describes the main characteristics of these incentives and (c) suggests guidelines for the use of such incentives to promote tourism development. Although this analysis is related primarily to developing countries, much of the comment is pertinent to developed countries.     

Local perspectives of ecotourism development in Tawushan Nature Reserve, Taiwan

This paper examines local responses to potential ecotourism development in the Tawushan Nature Reserve located in southeastern Taiwan. Community attitude and intention toward four dimensions of ecotourism, including conservation of natural resources, preservation of cultural tradition, sustainable community development, and participation in ecotourism planning and management, were measured. Furthermore, the paper examines whether or not there is congruence between community attitude and intention toward ecotourism development. Analysis is based on data collected using face-to-face questionnaire interviews in two indigenous communities consisting primarily of the Paiwan ethnic group. The study findings show that local people hold generally positive views of the measures necessary to achieve ecotourism; however, their intentions to engage in behaviors to support these measures do not entirely match with their positive views. This suggests that while local residents may support ecotourism development based on international guidelines, their intentions to act will depend on local environmental, social, and politico-economic conditions. It is suggested that issues related to community empowerment, relationship between government and communities, value conflicts introduced by ecotourism development, and the dynamics among and between various community groups will need to be addressed if positive community intention to participate in ecotourism is to be encouraged.     

International ecotourism and economic development in Central America and the Caribbean

Using annual data for the period 1995–2012 for seven Central American and Caribbean countries, six different open-economy growth models that allow for international (eco-) tourism are estimated using panel-data techniques. Two main results of the investigation are that international tourist arrivals per capita have a highly significant impact on real GDP per capita, and also that five different sustainability indicators interacted with international tourism have a positive impact on economic development. Furthermore, quantile regression shows that lower and medium income deciles of the population in particular benefit from international (eco-) tourism. The results are complemented by very similar findings for a set of 12 Central American and Caribbean countries using only two sustainability indicators, thus corroborating the validity of the specification. In addition, control variables are also generally significant and they feature the algebraic signs expected from economic theory.     

Major problems of tourism growth in developing countries

The following paper is an attempt to analyse the present-day tourist relationship between industrial nations and Developing Countries. It furthermore describes predictable conflict situations which may arise if these relations are subject to excessive physical and psychological strains or if the international division of labor in the field of “Vacation production” becomes unbalanced.