Community-Based Tourism: A More Responsible Mean to Travel
As John F. Kennedy once said and I quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”, it has been a beacon of light to the many seeking to contribute to our society. At Project Child Indonesia, we are on a constant pace to come up with modern and more sustainable projects to help empower communities living in disaster-prone areas of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Hence, on one of our three riverside projects, we have helped establish a community-based tourism attraction fitting for the potential of the area and the human resources in it. Code River in sub-district Jetisharjo, Yogyakarta, a piece of heaven, is set to indulge the many travellers with rich and diverse modern and traditional values of Yogyakarta. Living under the same roof of the locals, travelers will be indulged and participate in the many local attractions such as traditional dances and musical performances.
However, one might argue how and why is the implementation of community-based tourism is a right fit for the particular community and is it a sustainable choice of program. To further understand the matter, first and foremost, one must understand the definition of CBT. The plain way of defining CBT is that community based tourism is tourism in which local residents invites tourists and travelers into their community whilst also providing accomodation.
Although CBTs are not new, but it has gained popularity over the last three decades. As can be understood from the definition, the system of tourism are based on a participatory approach of the community with the aim to empower the host community at many levels such as, economic, social, psychological, etc. Brohman provides perhaps the most comprehensive definition of CBT:
“Community-based tourism development would seek to strengthen institutions designed to enhance local participation and promote the economic, social and cultural well-being of the popular majority. It would also seek to strike a balanced and harmonious approach to development that would stress considerations such as the compatibility of various forms of development with other components of the local economy; the quality of development, both culturally and environmentally; and the divergent needs, interests and potentials of the community and its inhabitants.”
Taking into account the boredom of mainstream tourism, a CBT offers a fresh and exciting holiday mean which help reduce the negative impact of mainstream tourism. To a certain extent, CBT can also be described as an ethical tourism which is also part of something broader — a global consumer movement, which is strengthening as people flex their muscles and make conscious choices about how they spend their holiday money and why.
Therefore, as Project Child Indonesia acknowledging the growing of a new trend, it is only fitting to help introduce and implement the system to a community with the abundance of potentials. Encouraging community participation in the tourism planning process is advocated as a way of implementing sustainable tourism. Meeting the need of social, environmental, and economic of societies through the offering a tourism product through the realisation community ownership and/or management and community benefit.
CBT is destined to thrive in poor economic and marginalised communities because it is a system that offers “travelling to benefit the destination as well as the traveller”. Through the implementation of CBT community benefits where there is a distribution of benefit to all households in the community. Thus it will be followed by joint ventures with community and/or collective benefits, including an anticipated transfer of management. As conservation initiatives starts to grow stronger within the community, product networks developed for marketing tourism in a local area will start to flourish and therefore an established private sector development within a community owned reserve will be stronger as ever.
Though it is a fresh and uprising form and mean of tourism, there are many downsides of CBT. However, taking into account the trend of ethical and a more responsible tourism, CBT is the ideal choice of tourism compared to the mainstream idea of tourism. This idea may be strengthened as economic recession and climate change trigger unprecedented naval-gazing into the choices we have to make for a sustainable tourism and future in general. Let us all now begin to realise the true essence of tourism, emphasizing in the reflective moment rather than instant gratification.
