Abstract
Diversification is a livelihood strategy that households use to survive and to absorb disturbances. Community-based ecotourism (CBE) is part of a set of sustainable options that are available to households for diversification. This paper analyses households’ capital assets that increase the probability of a family becoming involved in a CBE compared to other forms of diversification, and empirical evidence is presented for coastal communities located in Oaxaca, Mexico. Based on household surveys and a multinomial logit econometric model, the results show that the probability that a household decides to become involved in CBE increases for households with young people and those that have their basic needs covered by government programs or small agricultural production. Other forms of diversification are positively related to agreements within the community, woodfire use, and the presence of irrigated lands. Thus, CBE is determined by specific assets mentioned previously compared to other forms of diversification. Particularly, to promote CBE, tourism policies need to consider households’ human, social, natural, and financial capital assets and the associated programs in an integrated way to enhance community development.
Highlights
Rural households develop various strategies to be resilient, manage risks and stressors, of which diversification, migration, and the intensification of production are the main ones [1]
Other activities, depends on different capital assets, but the assets that are significant for both types of activity are government support and irrigated land
This paper analyses the determinants of community-based ecotourism as a strategy for reaching sustainable tourism
Summary
Rural households develop various strategies to be resilient, manage risks and stressors, of which diversification, migration, and the intensification of production are the main ones [1]. Diversification is recognized as one of the most common methods on which rural livelihoods rely [2,3,4] and is defined as the process that allows households to have different activities, sources of income, or employment to improve their welfare [1]. In Latin America, for 20 to 30% of households, off-farm activities represent 50% of the family economy [5,6]. In Mexico, diversification of income represents 49% of the total household income [7]. Tourism is a strategy and a substantial source of revenue for rural localities in many countries [9], partly due to the constant increase of tourism arrivals throughout the world, reaching 1.2 billion in
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