Integrated Tourism Planning. Report on Case Studies (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Tourism - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0, Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, course: Integrated Tourism Planning, language: English, abstract: Attempts to define the concept of community based tourism often find quite different words
and formulations, but always coming back to close similarities to sustainable tourism, eco
tourism or rural tourism. As a subcategory of sustainable tourism, the term is mostly used in
context with third world countries, but also other rather rural regions (Bittner, 2006).
Community based tourism aims to replace mass tourism and is supposed to make host
communities use the tourism business for self-determination and to involve local residents in
the planning process by complementing their traditional lifestyles with opportunities for
local employment and business (Addison, 1996). Therefore all tourism measures should
focus on the optimization of local economic benefits and protecting the host environment,
natural and built (Page, 2006). Implementing community based tourism, both the tourist and
the host communities should benefit and cross-cultural education and communication is, in
an ideal situation, promoted. Also preserving local traditions and developing a "public
participation program that [makes] clear to local residents the benefits and potential hazards
of the tourism industry" (Addison, 1996: 304) is necessary. Another significant fact is to
promote all-year-around tourism so that the local community does not seasonally depend on
the income of tourism. To realize this, a culturally and environmentally appropriate tourism
plan has to be developed. [...]