Augmenting the Role of Tourism Governance in Addressing Destination Justice, Ethics, and Equity for Sustainable Community-Based Tourism

James Petrick,Tek Dangi

doi:10.3390/tourhosp2010002

James Petrick, Tek Dangi

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/tourhosp2010002

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Abstract

Sustainable tourism development (STD) serves as a founding and guiding concept that can be applied to all forms of tourism, whereas community-based tourism (CBT) has been largely practiced as an alternative form of tourism development. Past research has suggested critical theoretical and practical omissions in both STD and CBT related to issues of community well-being, justice, ethics, and equity. With an objective of bridging these gaps, this research developed an integrated framework of sustainable community-based tourism (SCBT) based on a comprehensive literature review, which identified that there was a significant under-representation of key elements such as justice, ethics, and equity in the domain of governance both in the STD and CBT literatures. The qualitative research mixed emergent data with theory driven data and conducted semi-structured interviews with 40 diverse tourism stakeholders in the twin cities of Bryan–College Station (BCS) in Texas. Results revealed that tourism helped to promote cultural preservation and community pride and promoted the sense of mutual respect and understanding among visitors and stakeholders. However, some ethnic minorities felt they were not receiving full benefits of tourism. The study concluded that a more proactive, inclusive, ethic of care oriented tourism governance to help ensure sustainable tourism development is needed.

Highlights

Sustainable tourism (ST) development has long been promoted and practiced as an alternative model of tourism development that seeks balanced development while minimizing social, cultural, and environmental impacts of tourism [1,2,3,4]
Are neither fully similar nor dissimilar, but possess substantial intersections and overlaps as two focused approaches to tourism development. These findings suggest ST is more of an overarching concept, whereas community-based tourism (CBT) is a form/approach to tourism development rooted in the locale/community
This study reinforces that issues of justice, ethics, and equity remain salient for sustainable tourism development; they can pose implementation challenges

Summary

Introduction

Sustainable tourism (ST) development has long been promoted and practiced as an alternative model of tourism development that seeks balanced development while minimizing social, cultural, and environmental impacts of tourism [1,2,3,4]. Various forms of alternative tourism including ecotourism, rural tourism, community-based tourism, agrotourism, volunteer tourism, and responsible tourism have remained in practice since 1980s as an adaptancy approach to sustainable tourism development [5,6,7,8]. Much literature has been published in the past four decades delineating sustainable tourism (ST) development and community-based tourism (CBT). Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) [9,10], while CBT has been claimed to have origins at various local and regional scales spanning across different countries and continents around the world [9,11,12]. Despite the availability of a plethora of definitions, principles, indicators, criteria and practices related to ST and CBT, there remains little guidance how these diverse perspectives can be integrated to “help inform a sustainability-oriented approach to tourism” [20] Camargo, and Wilson [10] outlined the need “to develop a comprehensive framework of justice and care to guide and evaluate sustainable tourism” (p. 4606)

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