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

[Figure 1: levels of empowerment of local communities in touristic projects] 
CBET relies on empowerment of the host community but also on ownership. Local people must 
have access to resources, but they must also possess their own land. 
For Hiwasaki (2006) the objectives of CBET are “communities’ empowerment and ownership, 
conservation of natural and cultural resources, social and economic development, and quality 
visitor experience” (p.677). CBET involves conservation of resources, social and economic 
development and must lead to the quality of the visitor experience (Hiwasaki, 2006; Jennings, 
Lee, Lunny, Cater & Ollenburg, 2009). The tourism product must be attractive to tourists, which 
implies that community hosts must behave as tourists expect them to behave.
This paper gives evidence through a meta-study of six cases that community-based ecotourism 
exists, proves that the new tourism products cater to the new tourist expectations, and identifies 
which features differentiate community-based ecotourism from other “traditional” ecotourism.
 
R
ESEARCH METHODOLOGY
 
Meta-study analysis of cases 
This paper uses a meta-study approach as specified by Van der Linde (2003). The meta-study is 
similar to the meta-analysis strategy, which has been very popular in medical research. The idea 
is to pool the information from other studies and then systematically search and quantitatively 
combine the results of studies that address a similar research question. Then, it isolates moderator 
variables and verifies their overall impact on the relationship being studied.

---

10 
In tourism research and for our topic in particular, this strategy has two shortcomings. Firstly, in 
medical studies the dependent variable is well defined, whereas tourism research is interested in a 
variety of outcomes, such as the rate of innovation, job creation, value created for stakeholders, 
and protection of natural resources. Thus the dependent variable cannot be isolated and is 
arguably an indefinite factor. Secondly, tourism research, in particular concerning our topic, 
tends to be more qualitative than quantitative in nature (Xiao and Smith, 2006).
As Stake (2000) noted, the qualitative research strategy relies on “the study of the particular” 
(p.438). Qualitative research helps to apprehend the nature, history, and socio-cultural contexts 
of specific cases. In qualitative research, the chosen unit of analysis is critical; qualitative 
research deals with a system of action rather than an individual or a group of individuals (Tellis, 
1997). This means that it facilitates research aimed at understanding the interactions of actors 
more than their voice and perspective. The tourist offer is increasingly addressed as a cluster 
problem (Novelli, Schmitz & Spencer, 2006); studying it through a multiple case meta-study 
would produce the most satisfactory results. 
We collected from academic and non-academic literature, qualitative cases that seem to embody 
the essence of community-based ecotourism, and we derive from them some characteristics to 
seize the nature of this emerging concept. 

---

11