Responsible Tourism and People Empowerment

One of our European-based tour operators promotes responsible tourism by endorsing the view of community tourism as involving various activities to benefit poor communities. These range “from a private company wishing to develop its relationship with the poorest communities up to a national program whose goal is to make these communities participate at all levels. This form of tourism applies three main types of strategy: extending economic benefits of the poorest communities; raising the non-economic impacts; developing policies, partnerships and procedures in favor of these communities”.

Source : Caractériser le tourisme responsable facteur de développement durable, 2003

http://www.eveil-tourisme-responsable.org/uk/responsible-tourism-definition.php 

• The predominant Jamaican view of community tourism, which seems to be shared across the Caribbean, is “both an integrated approach and collaborative tool for the socio-economic empowerment of communities through the assessment, development and marketing of natural and cultural community resources which seeks to add value to the experience of local and foreign visitors and simultaneously improve the quality of communities”.

http://www.mona.uwi.edu/jct/aboutct/index.htm 

• Further, “the vision of community tourism is to expose the local resources and talents, and make the concept a reality for local people. Community tourism embraces eco-tourism, cultural tourism, adventure tourism, recreational tourism, geo-tourism, heritage tourism, health tourism, farm tourism and all the popular special interest tourism”.

http://www.countrystylecommunitytourism.com/community-t-history.htm 

• The Tourism Product Development Company in Jamaica sees community-based tourism development (as) “a strategy used by tourism planners to mobilize communities into action to participate in broadening the scope of offerings in the industry. The goal is socio-economic empowerment and a value-added experience for local and foreign visitors. This process opens new niches for destination Jamaica, most notably for the nature, culture, and adventure traveler….

Community-based development empowers people to be more aware of the value of their community assets - their culture, heritage, cuisine and lifestyle. It mobilizes them to convert these into income generating projects while offering a more diverse and worthwhile experience to visitors. Every citizen is a potential business partner to be trained in small business management, environmental awareness, product development and marketing. This type of ‘people-centred’ tourism promotes a sense of ‘ownership’ which augurs well for the industry’s sustainability”. http://www.tpdco.org/dynaweb.dti?dynasection=tourismenhancement&dynapage=commbased