Ownership, inclusion key to community-based tourism

The main reas­ons for fail­ure are “top-down approach by devel­op­ment part­ner and/or private sec­tor part­ner in which the needs and ideas of the com­munity are not taken into con­sid­er­a­tion”, fol­lowed by “lack of mobil­isa­tion and involve­ment of the com­munity”, and “an unstable polit­ic­al situation”.

This is accord­ing to a poll of par­ti­cipants at the second Com­munit­ies and Tour­ism Con­fer­ence in Nay Pyi Daw, June 13 – 14, organ­ised and hos­ted by the Myan­mar Centre for Respons­ible Busi­ness (MCRB), Myan­mar Respons­ible Tour­ism Insti­tute (MRTI) and Hanns Seidel Found­a­tion (HSF).

These find­ings high­light the need for com­munit­ies “to be inter­ested and act­ive in own­ing the tour­ism products they put on the market”.

Six com­munity tour­ism ini­ti­at­ives – Mya­ing, Indawgyi, Pa‑O region, Kayah State, Upper Aye­yar­wady dol­phin pro­ject, and Thand­aunggyi – related their suc­cesses since the last event in Decem­ber 2015.

They had all seen a growth in vis­it­ors, includ­ing domest­ic trav­el­lers, and some increases in income from tour­ism. Nev­er­the­less, their largest chal­lenge was mar­ket­ing their products.

Oth­er chal­lenges cited included “con­tin­ued restric­tions on access and overnight stays by for­eign­ers which reduced loc­al earn­ing poten­tial, lack of skilled human resources, and lack of loc­al know­ledge about what for­eign tour­ists want and how they behave”.

All the pro­jects high­lighted the import­ance of pro­mot­ing envir­on­ment­al aware­ness, and “pro­tect­ing and build­ing pride in and know­ledge of loc­al cul­ture which was par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing to for­eign visitors”.

PaO com­munity-involved tour­ism stall at Com­munit­ies and Tour­ism Con­fer­ence. Source: MCRB

Par­ti­cipants expressed optim­ism about Myanmar’s CBT poten­tial. New des­tin­a­tions and products dis­cussed included “Myeik archipelago and Lampi Island, trekking in Danu regions in Shan State, Ngay­okekaung, Gwa, tours in the Yan­gon area, Tam­ar­ind Lake Vil­lage near Sale, and Bagan area”.

Dr Nicole Haeusler, adviser to GIZ and MRTI, explained that “com­munity-based tour­ism (CBT)” ten­ded to involve tours and overnight stays where­as “com­munity-involved tour­ism (CIT)” could be regarded as CBT plus the com­munity pro­du­cing items for the tour­ism sup­ply chain, such as food, fur­nish­ings, and souvenirs.

The “GT” Blog would call this “inclus­ive tour­ism” (see the “GT” Gloss­ary). Thoughts?

Whatever ter­min­o­logy is used, the import­ant good tour­ism prin­ciple to be learned from the event is that genu­ine com­munity par­ti­cip­a­tion and entre­pren­eur­ship is needed for the sus­tained suc­cess of tour­ism with­in communities.Top-down approaches are more likely to fail.

MCRB Dir­ect­or Vicky Bow­man said: “We need to recog­nise is that com­munity tour­ism is a business.

“NGOs can be very help­ful to get a pro­ject star­ted. But the most sus­tain­able com­munity tour­ism ini­ti­at­ives are the ones driv­en by the nat­ur­al entre­pren­eurs in the loc­al com­munity. They may be pro­du­cing loc­al food and souven­irs for a nearby tour­ism hub, or they may be run­ning a small res­taur­ant, gues­t­house or adven­ture activity.

“For those entre­pren­eurs to be suc­cess­ful, the gov­ern­ment needs to under­stand their chal­lenges, includ­ing how they are hindered by unne­ces­sary red tape, and make it easy for them to innov­ate and grow”.

Source: This post is based on a sum­mary of the event by co-host MCRB.

Fea­tured image: Farm­er with two buf­falo. By Chris­toph­er Michel CC BY 2.0 via Wiki­me­dia Commons

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Res­ults of polling at the Com­munit­ies and Tour­ism Con­fer­ence. (hos­ted offsite)