As I mentioned in my previous piece, Community Based Tourism: What’s in a Name?, I first became aware of the concept in the early 1990s when I was introduced to the Ulu Ai Longhouse experience in Sarawak, East Malaysia. It was one of the first tours, in the depths of the Borneo Rainforest, which we promoted.

There were other longhouse tours around, the best known being on the Skrang River, but, to my knowledge, none were as sensitive to the cultural and natural environment as this one.

The initiative was the brain-child of the two owners of the Kuching-based operator Borneo Adventure, Philip Yong and Robert Basiuk. It has been described by Robert, as “one example of a new generation of tourism products promoting the intricate relationship between the rainforest and its dwellers.”

The project started back in 1986 and by 1999 twenty six families “received over RM 300,000 ($82,000) in tourism-related pay. In addition to the wages earned as guides, boat drivers and cooks, as well as rental for the guesthouse, the village people also earn money selling traditional handicrafts such as woven blankets ($10,000 in 1999). This income has also allowed the village to break out of the subsistence agriculture cycle and diversify their economy to include more efficient cash crops. The reduced demand for expansion onto new land means that less forest is cut, ultimately providing more habitat for wildlife.”

Philip Yong, the company’s managing director, told me recently that the project continues to perform well although they have put a cap on the annual number of visitors. I almost typed the word ‘naturally’ in that sentence but of course not all companies would be as sensitive: some would milk the project for as much as they possibly could. I hate being cynical but that is the reality.

In an interview published on Wild Asia (a Malaysia-based conservation group which promotes responsible tourism) Philip states that “If I want to make money I could sell this product to another company and cash out….. But this is good for the soul…”

In this same interview Philip explains frankly that community based tourism (CBT) is not without its challenges and he is keen to point out that, although an award-winning initiative, it should not be viewed as a model.

I wonder if there is or could be a model for community based tourism. “There’s no one solution-fit-all, but a set of criteria. You need to have a cohesive community with a strong leadership, and you need people who are committed and who get things done,” says Yong. Now that of course is true of any community project and, although my experience with ‘communities’ is limited, my guess is it is difficult to find these key attributes in one place. Thus I doubt that a model could ever exist.

I do believe that, while not a panacea, CBT does have scope for alleviating poverty in remote communities. If you have any experience of such projects or know of a ‘model’ I am keen to hear from you, please contact me.

All images courtesy of Borneo Adventure.

The key question for me is, over the longterm (well, we are all going to have to work until we’re 90 aren’t we?), how can I use my 25 years of travel industry experience as a specialist tour operator in a worthwhile way?

Until recently, in my spare time, I was a school governor and a trustee of a children’s charity but those tenures have ended and now I am looking for something else. I have always been interested in a responsible approach to travel, and a great believer in authentic travel experiences, so the idea of pursuing something in this line appeals. Especially if it meets one of the aims of this site, namely to bring positive change to the lives of under-privileged children in south-east Asia (not all of them, of course, just as many as possible).

Two of my favourite tours at Magic of the Orient were community-based, although I don’t think the phrase ‘Community based tourism” had been coined when we first started promoting them back in the mid 1990s. One tour was to a hilltribe village in Northern Thailand and the other to a longhouse in Sarawak, East Malaysia (aka Borneo). In both cases the community had built accommodation especially for tourists and in both cases the community were involved in planning and running the set-up. These projects brought income to the community via bed and lodgings, guiding services and souvenir purchases.

Here is a definition of CBT from the Thailand Community Based Tourism Institute (1997):

“CBT is tourism that takes environmental, social, and cultural sustainability into account. It is 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”.

Unfortunately, however, there does not appear to be just one definition. According to Harold Goodwin, a recognized authority on Responsible Tourism, “there is no agreement about the meaning of CBT and ….. whenever the words are used the meaning needs to be made clear”.

OK that’s fair enough so we always need to qualify CBT whenever we talk about it but wait! According to a study by Goodwin, the model is not sustainable: “.. evidence suggests that average bed occupancy achieved by CBT initiatives is around 5% and that this unsustainable.”

What? So is there any point? Goodwin goes on: “The research has demonstrated that there are a number of initiatives which are not CBT which have demonstrated very considerable employment, local economic development and collective community benefits….”

OK, so this is more positive. There are initiatives that are not CBT that are successful. Hmm. So if there is an initiative that is deemed successful does it matter that it is not CBT?

This also begs the question. “how is success measured”? For me, back when we started promoting such tours, the motivation was twofold: 1) to give remote communities the opportunity to benefit from tourism and 2) to provide our clients with an authentic experience. For me it was essential that the hosts were proactive participants rather than passive recipients as in ‘goldfish bowl’ tourism: the tours to Paduang villages – the so-called longneck tribes – in Northern Thailand are examples of passive tourism and, in my opinion, are abhorrent . Simplistically, if these objectives were met, it was successful and certainly the two tours referred to above are still operating today (I shall write more about them later).

Also it must surely depend upon whether the initiative is intended to be the sole provider for a community or whether it is to be incremental income. Given the vagaries of the travel industry I would suggest that the initiative should always be for incremental income.

If we forget, then, the constraints of labels and think instead in terms of (lower case) community based tourism, surely this opens up a wide range of possibilities.

What do you think: is Community Based Tourism no more than academic theory; just more marketing hype with little real value over the long-term; or is it a concept worth pursuing?