An Explanation of Community-based Tourism by Fair Tourism
Kayan _human zoo_.JPG
The most meaningful experiences during my travels have been the encounters with local people and experiencing their way of life.
During my field research on Sulawesi, Indonesia, our group was invited to a traditional Toraja wedding and for a moment while taking part in the celebrations, we felt like we were part of the community. We were sitting amongst the other local guests, enjoying the ceremony that included traditional dancing and a delicious lunch: an experience that I still cherish today.
Encounters with local people can be spontaneous, like my invitation to the wedding, but similar interactions can also be organised through the concept of community-based tourism (CBT). There are several definitions of community-based tourism that all include more or less the same aspects. At Fair Tourism, we work with the definition by CBT Network:
“Community-based tourism 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.”
By definition, CBT involves much more than simply visiting a village or staying at a homestay. CBT believes that the host community should receive the financial benefits from tourism so that they are empowered to shape tourism. Furthermore, CBT provides livelihoods providing opportunities for locals to become guides, homestay managers or drivers. Since these community members have been living in the region for so long, they are the ultimate experts of their own tourism product. Through this type of tourism, direct impacts can be seen in the form of job creation, e.g. establishment of souvenir shops and restaurants and indirect effects can be felt. Some small-scale projects have a system in place from which people who do not work in tourism can also benefit. In these cases, the tourist pays a fixed amount of money that is collected for the village’s social projects, like the establishment of schools or sanitation systems. Other positive effects of tourism on the local community are the revaluation of culture, and the fact that young people are less inclined to move to the big city for work opportunities. CBT also offers great chances to strengthen women’s position in the community. Women often are able to become restaurant owners and souvenir vendors which gives them a chance to earn their own income and become independent.
Ma Pang weaving.JPG
Developing Community-based Tourism
Community-based tourism can develop from two situations, namely upon initiation by an external organisation or by the local community itself. Often, when the community initiates the idea, the biggest barriers are a lack of knowledge or expertise, of which asking established organisations (NGOs, inter-governmental organisations..etc.) to help get the initiative off the ground could be a solution. CBT initiated by an external organisation, on the other hand can present difficulties in keeping tourism authentic and by and for locals due to the potential lack of responsibility and involvement from the community. However, in most cases, CBT is regulated by an external organisation in the beginning phase and sometimes also in later stages.
Marketing Community-based Tourism
It is important to market CBT in the right way. Small villages are often not easy to find and need publicity to get initiatives off the ground. This type of tourism actually benefits from organised holidays, because a project that stands on its own has less chances to receive visitors than those that are included in a holiday. To make the project stand out for an organised holiday, it is important to market the unique character of the community to make the project stand out from others. In this way, a more varied product will be created which will attract more tourists. The tourists themselves also benefit from CBT. Through the intercultural exchange with the local community, CBT often offers transformational and life-changing experiences for tourists to bring back home and tell about to their families and friends.
Potential Negative Impacts
As with many other industries, tourism can also bring along negative impacts. Think of litter and Westernization of the local culture. Therefore, to go around this, there must be a limit to the amount of tourists that can visit a village. It is best if the community itself decides what their limit would be.
Visiting local communities can sometimes be associated with human zoos. In earlier days, human zoos were places where people who were considered to be different would be put on display. Different in the sense that their culture was considered primitive and inferior to the Western culture. Nowadays, villages are considered human zoos when its inhabitants are prone to voyeuristic activities from tourists. Imagine a stranger taking photos of your child while he is playing with his friends. Most people would not feel comfortable with strangers gawking at their children and taking their photographs. However, this does happen and in these cases, the local community often only gets a small share of the benefits from this type of tourism and has no say in the organisation of the tourism products. Some would call it exploitation. To better understand this phenomenon, I will explain the work and share the story of Fair Tourism in the Huay Pu Keng village in Thailand.
Pai river & nature HPK.JPG
Huay Pu Keng
Let me take you back to Myanmar in the eighties and nineties of the previous century. Like now, there was a lot of unrest in the country. Political violence, oppression in the bordering Shan State and forced labour by the military junta had become daily business for the hill tribes living there. Many hill tribes, like the Karenni people, fled to the border of Thailand, to Mae Hong Son province. The tribes were settled in refugee camps and they were given three choices: (1) stay in the refugee camp without having any freedom of movement, (2) resettlement to foreign countries like Australia, Finland and the Netherlands, or (3) move to villages open to tourism. None of the options were ideal, but the third option at least provided them with the freedom to travel within Mae Hong Son province. The majority of the Karenni people chose this option and that is how they ended up in villages open to tourism.
Huay Pu Keng was founded in 1989 by the Thai government. Around 2000, the village started to receive a lot of tourists and the economy began to grow. This helped the refugees to live a more comfortable life. There was only one problem. The majority of tourists only spent half an hour in the village only to walk through the main street and take photos. Only a few bought handicraft souvenirs before leaving. Not enough souvenirs were sold to sufficiently support the villagers and no meaningful interaction between tourists and the villagers occured. And the money paid by the tourists to visit the village? Most of that money would end up in the pockets of businessmen who saw the Karenni people, and mostly the Kayan, as nothing more than a tourist attraction. Maybe you have heard about the Kayan as well. They are a subgroup of the Karenni people who are known for wearing brass rings around their neck. People also refer to them as longnecks. Other Karenni subgroups that live in the village are Kayaw, Pakayor, Red Karen and Tai Yai/Shan.
Not only have the villages, but also the tourists have suffered from the human zoo phenomenon. Many tourists feel terrible about the idea of visiting a human zoo and try to avoid these places. They are afraid of creating any negative impact or feel like voyeurists. Besides this, many of the tourists are not fond of the idea of paying an entrance fee to visit the village, take photographs and buy unauthentic souvenirs.. Some bloggers would even go as far as saying that everything in the village is staged. In social science, we would refer to this situation where culture is modified to the likings of tourists, as “staged authenticity”, i.e. a place where the cultural traditions are exaggerated. As a result, many tourists and tour operators started to boycott the village because of exploitation of refugees.
Eight years ago, our founder, Charlotte Louwman-Vogels, started a project together with the people of Huay Pu Keng. She had learned a lot about the community during her studies and wanted to understand the situation on the ground to see whether tourism in Huay Pu Keng could be organised in a more respectful way. Together with the community and other stakeholders, they developed a CBT model that gave tourism back to the Karenni people so that they could shape their own tourism model.
host & guest in HPK - photo by Charlotte.jpg
The Community Tourism Model in Practice
Two questions were important in shaping the tourism offering, namely (1) what are you proud of? and (2) what do you want to tell the tourists?
These community members had amazing stories to tell and skills to share forming the basis for intercultural exchange between the Karenni and the tourists. By developing CBT, there was more equality between the hosts and the visitors. Think of it this way, if there is just looking and no learning, the gap becomes more apparent.
The villagers who wanted to become a part of tourism participated in CBT training. The training included many topics, but some examples were: environmental preservation, culture differences and connecting with tour companies. The village now offers several workshops, like brass bracelet and bamboo handicraft making, several hiking experiences, tree planting, cooking classes and an overnight stay in a homestay. The focus of these activities is on cultural exchange and getting to know each other. With this transition, Huay Pu Keng became the first and only Karenni village in Thailand offering CBT. The CBT team of Huay Pu Keng meets with the villagers every month to assess who wants to work in tourism and in what way. They discuss what is going well, what needs to change and if there are any new projects to include. Fair Tourism, on the other hand, assists when requested and promotes Huay Pu Keng in several tourism markets, which led to the inclusion of Huay Pu Keng in tourism offerings by several tour operators, like Better Places, Footprint Travel, Fox Reizen, Sawadee Reizen, Shoestring and Low Season Traveller. Together, we try to ensure that a visit to Huay Pu Keng is beneficial and enjoyable for both the Karenni people as well as the visitors.
As I said in the beginning, the experiences I have enjoyed (and most travelers enjoy) the most during my travels have been the encounters with local people. People who visited Huay Pu Keng after their transition to CBT refer to it as the highlight of their trip. This feels like a success as the villagers enjoy this type of tourism as well. Through their workshops, villagers can build a connection with the tourists. They understand that we are all equal and that we can learn from each other. In our opinion, community-based tourism is a win-win situation for all.
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