Connecting with Culture

Abstract

Community-tourism initiatives such as those described in the “VillageLife” case are one hoped-for way of getting more of the financial benefits of tourism to flow toward local people. They potentially provide a much better chance of connecting tourists with local communities than “enclave” tourism can hope to do. However, as the case illustrates, achieving all of the goals of community tourism can be a daunting task because of the complexity of tourism—including transportation, lodging, food and beverage, attractions, and retail. This means fulfilling all the requirements of being in these businesses, which can be a challenge for those operating with just a profit motive, and an even greater challenge for an operator who wants to mix sustainable tourism with revenue. Achieving a sustainable triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental success is not easy.