The Importance of Documenting and Including Traditional Wisdom in Community-Based Ecotourism Planning

Vesna Đukić,Ivana Volić

doi:10.1177/2158244016681048

Abstract

This article accords to the theory of community-based tourism, which represents a concept that respects natural and cultural resources of a particular community and encourages participation of its members in the process of tourist product creation. The article operates in the planning phase and aims to give insights into the process of establishing the groundwork for community-based tourism. The key element is documenting and illustrating everything that could be a part of what is known as “traditional wisdom,” namely, the skills and knowledge of traditional life practices. The methods of case study, content analysis, and observation of the village of Omoljica, Serbia, were used. The positive aspect of this locality is reflected in the existing short-term initiatives of organizations and individuals engaging in preserving traditional practices, but without systematic, long-term planning and management of community-based tourism, these individual efforts to revalue traditional life practices would stay unrecognizable and invisible for visitors and stakeholders. Thus, the main goal of this article is to understand the relation between short-term bottom-up initiatives and long-term top-down strategic planning of specific ecotourism destinations, one that would embrace the traditional ways of rural community life. The contribution of this study, in addition to documenting and illustrating “traditional wisdom” of the specific rural community placed in the protected area which encompasses a particular local social system, will be reflected in the creation of a set of guidelines for sustainable, rural, community-based ecotourism as a soft-driver development of protected areas near big cities of the postsocialist countries.

Highlights

The aim of this article is to present current theories on community-based ecotourism and tourism planning, as well as try to connect them with the traditional wisdom of rural communities.The interests of the community within tourism development have been a topic since the nineties of the 20th century
Over the past 20 years, the importance of community has become a key factor in tourism planning, which has led to coining the term “community-based tourism” (CBT) describing a concept of tourism that is based on local human and natural resources, “managed and owned by the community, for the community, with the purpose of enabling visitors to increase their awareness and learn about the community and local ways of life” (The Thailand Community Based Institute, 2013)
Based on studies of relevant theories and data on community-based ecotourism and tourism planning gathered during theoretical and empirical desk research, three methods of qualitative analysis were used in this article—participant observation, content analysis, and case study with narrative inquiry

Summary

Introduction

The aim of this article is to present current theories on community-based ecotourism and tourism planning, as well as try to connect them with the traditional wisdom of rural communities.The interests of the community within tourism development have been a topic since the nineties of the 20th century. Over the past 20 years, the importance of community has become a key factor in tourism planning, which has led to coining the term “community-based tourism” (CBT) describing a concept of tourism that is based on local human and natural resources, “managed and owned by the community, for the community, with the purpose of enabling visitors to increase their awareness and learn about the community and local ways of life” (The Thailand Community Based Institute, 2013). Such a concept declares that the local community could be involved in tourism in two primary ways—through profit distribution

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