Community tourism's new face

About 120 delegates involved in community-based tourism (CBT) projects in Thailand and Asia met last week in Bangkok to swap best practices to help them uphold the fundamental objectives of their grassroots ventures and prevent them from becoming victims of their own growing popularity.

About 80 villages nationwide participating in CBT attended the meeting at which they sought to learn from each other how to attract more visitors without damaging the environment or causing other social or cultural problems that would eventually make the exercise self-defeating.

Organised by the Community Based Tourism Institute (CBT-I), located in Chiang Mai, the meeting was supported by the Thailand Research Fund in an effort to show how far CBT is contributing toward sustainable development. The European Union has also funded the CBT promotion effort at various stages.

Although Thai villages have been catering to brief stops by visitors for more than 15 years, some have gone a step further by expanding into home-stays and other opportunities for small numbers of tourists to stay overnight, and also join local people in some daily activities.

This has tapped into the growing demand by well-travelled visitors worldwide for a "learning experience" from their trips. Proponents say it is line with national poverty-alleviation goals and gives villagers a reason to uphold their cultures. It also distributes income to the rural areas and helps residents preserve the local environment.

But academics and non-governmental organisations say the difficult part is only just beginning as villages grapple with the task of running a proper business venture with all the operational, marketing and financial problems that entails.

While no definitive numbers are available on total visitors to all the CBT projects nationwide, a study presented by Prof Pariwat Somnuek of Ubon Ratchathani University showed that the village of Baan Phu received 5,850 Thai and 23 foreign visitors in 2008, generating total income of 1.85 million baht. In 2009, the figures fell to 5,133 Thai and 20 foreign visitors, generating 1.56 million baht.

According to the CBT-I, "The potential of tourism to contribute toward sustainable development is increasingly recognised in Thailand, Asean and globally. Now is an ideal time to review the direction, successes and challenges of community-based tourism in Thailand, so that lessons learned can benefit local communities, development practitioners and tourism industry stakeholders."

Said CBT-I chairman Pradech Phayakvichien, a former Tourism Authority of Thailand governor: "Three solutions for helping the community are: seeking alliances or partnerships, building networks and building up the community's academic knowledge. All these cannot be done separately but must connect and support each other."

In his keynote presentation, Prof Sinth Sarobol, of the School of Administrative Studies and Mae Jo University, said one of the biggest issues CBT villages faced was dealing with the impact of globalisation and the relationship with multinational tour operators who see CBT as a new and interesting niche market for their clients, but who will end up getting the lion's share of the earnings.

German consultant Nicole Hausler, who specialises in responsible tourism issues, notes that two other issues are the income distribution within the CBT villages themselves as well as "organisation culture versus community culture".

She cited the results of a 2005 study by the Social Research Institute of Chiang Mai University of Plai Pong Pang Village in Samut Songkhram, which showed that the manager of the village's tourism management centre was the son of the project chairman.

"The study found that four owners of the Thai traditional houses were all related. Income distribution was unequal with a small number of participating members getting the bigger share. The richest household got 76% of the total income. More than 80% of the villagers did not participate in the tourism project and did not benefit from it," she quoted the study as saying.

Similar issues are emerging in Cambodia where six CBT projects have been set up as part of the policy to promote micro and small and medium-sized enterprises. Funding to help manage them has come from USAID.

Mr Pradech believes that adopting the sufficiency economy principles of His Majesty the King will be key to success because they stress Buddhist principles of moderation in commercial practice. This means that "the middle path approach is necessary to attain satisfaction, while minimising greed as mode of conduct by all, to achieve moderation and gradual yet (make) steady progress."

Thailand project consultant Peter Richards says that success can be realised with adequate training, information exchange and early-warning notification of the challenges ahead.

"It is necessary to understand the entire chain of actors who play a part in the CBT experience, their importance and the roles which they need to play. At each point in this chain, work can be done educate, inform and cement partnerships so that there is the highest possible chance of success," he said.

Sourced=bangkokpost