Community-based ecotourism to meet the new tourist's expectations: an exploratory study

 
Community-based ecotourism 
Community-based ecotourism (CBET) is anchored on the three main elements of sustainable 
development: economic efficiency, social equity and ecological sustainability (Mbaiwa, 2004).
Economic efficiency means that tourism activities must produce the maximum output to make 

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sure that the people will have access to a high standard of living and that benefits are shared 
equally between all entities involved in the activity.
Social equity means that all user groups involved in a CBET must experience fair and equal 
access to resources as well as a fair share of revenues, decision-making participation and 
management related to the tourism activity. All the people of a community involved in a CBET 
project should have the opportunity to benefit from it. Ecological sustainability means that CBET 
activities must avoid any stress imposed by human activity and maintain the stability of the 
ecosystem. The goal of CBET is to ensure natural resource conservation in addition to respecting 
the host community. 
Community-based ecotourism is centered on the host community (Ruiz-Ballesteros & al., 2008). 
Tourists and the host community have a reciprocal relationship. While the tourists impact the 
environment, community and reputation of the place, the host community also impacts the 
tourists. Local issues have a direct and important impact on the tourist experience; the culture of 
the local people, infrastructure, and special events affect tourist activity and give the destination 
its image. Tourism is very sensitive to internal and external forces. So, to increase the feasibility 
and longevity of tourism projects as well as the economic benefits gained by the community, 
tourism projects must be linked or integrated with the overall socioeconomic development of the 
community (Okazaki, 2008). 
Several authors have highlighted key factors of the CBET concept. According to Hiwasaki 
(2006), there are four key success factors: institutional arrangements, self-regulations related to 
conservation, high environmental awareness, and existence of partnership. Okazaki (2008) states 
that participation, empowerment, and collaboration are also essential features to the success of 
CBET projects. For Mitchell and Reid (2001), integrated community participation is 
characterized by three decisive parameters: community awareness, which refers to the 

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“conscientization” (Freire, 1970) of people with regard to tourism development issues; 
community unity, which refers to solidarity; and power or control relationship, which refers to 
empowerment.
According to several authors, empowerment is a mainstay feature of CBET. For Rowland (1997) 
“empowerment is more than participation in decision-making; it must also include the processes 
that lead people to perceived themselves as able and entitled to make decisions” (p.14). It means 
that community members need the adequate resources and skills to develop the capacity to take a 
real part in every aspect of the tourism project. The power to obtain them is often held by 
government or other stakeholders who do not regard local residents as equal partners (Gray, 
1985). 
Empowerment involves the surrender of power by the authority but also relies on community 
participation and collaboration. Based on previous work by Haywood (1988) and Arnstein 
(1969), Okazaki (2008) states that participation is about power redistribution, knowledge 
spillovers and a decision-making shared among all stakeholders. A successful CBET also 
includes collaboration to secure benefits and to solve problems and tensions among stakeholders. 
Collaboration implies autonomous and empowered stakeholders (Getz et Jamal, 1994); everyone 
should be involved in decision-making (Jamal et Getz, 1999). Scheyvens (2002) and Simpson 
(2008) argue that empowerment is essential for CBET and that empowerment requires a certain 
level of control, property and influence. The intensity of control makes the difference between 
traditional forms of ecotourism and community-based ecotourism. There is a difference between 
ecotourism cases entirely controlled by external operators where members of the community are 
used as workforce and cases where a community truly controls all aspects of the project and the 
key consequence of this difference is the impact on the community (Wunder, 2000).

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According to Scheyvens (1999) there are four levels of empowerment: economic empowerment, 
psychological empowerment, social empowerment and political empowerment (figure 1).