The Leadership Role in Sustainable Community-Based Tourism Development Within a Rural Setting

Abstract

The development of community-based tourism has seen many communities in rural areas take control of their economic well-being, social justice issues, and environmental integrity. In many quarters, this kind of freedom has been attributed to the availability of competent leadership that can mobilise the community and the resources endowed to the community. This study investigated the role of community leadership in the development of sustainable community based tourism. The study assumed a qualitative research approach that followed an exploratory design. The chosen approach employed semi-structured interviews of 15 respondents through a non-probability sampling technique to solicit data. The collected data was analysed using NVivo software version 12, producing a comprehensive observation report accompanied by word trees, word clouds, cluster analysis, and tree maps. The study's findings produced themes indicative of the community’s views concerning the role played by community leaders in the development of sustainable community-based tourism. These findings presented orations by respondents indicating contributions of community leaders in the development of sustainable community based tourism together with the shortcomings in terms of the leaders’ capacity and skills required to lead a community away from poverty and vulnerability.

Keywords

• leadership
• sustainability
• community-based tourism
• poverty
• development