Towards a Spontaneous Community Participation Model in Community-Based Tourism

Abstract

This article proposes guidelines and themes related to the advancement of spontaneous community participation for community-based tourism (CBT). Community-based tourism has its own difficulties and challenges, however it can still be a valuable strategy to advance community development through tourism. Globally, CBT has been embraced as a tourism development approach in various geographical contexts. In South Africa the Government has published specific Operational guidelines for community-based tourism and reflects on community participation in tourism over the last decades. This paper does not intend to idealise CBT or deny the possible use of external assistance. However, it proposes a facilitative approach, as the base of spontaneous participation to positively favour community spontaneous participation in CBT. This article proposes a community participation model, based on the extrapolation of themes on spontaneous participation. The proposed model is flexible and adjustable to various contexts aimed for global relevance. This is a conceptual paper based on secondary data and was compiled from existing literature and online sources.