Turismo comunitario en Ecuador. Comprendiendo el community-based tourism desde la comunidad

Abstract

The growing impetus of community-based tourism (CBT) as a means of achieving sustainable tourism and a strategy for social development forces us to seek a deeper understanding of this phenomenon. This paper proposes an analytical focus on the community as a theoretical/methodological tactic. The empirical reference point in this research paper is the concept of turismo comunitario (TC) in Ecuador, where five communities were chosen to conduct an in-depth ethnographic study. By means of a conclusion, a comprehensive framework is put forward for TC, founded on three main pillars: the analy-tical centrality of the communities; the consideration of TC as a ‘translation’ rather than an ‘adaptation’ to the market; and the fortifying - rather than debilitating - nature of TC for the communities involved. This provides a series of factors that can be used to gain a general understanding of CBT, from a theore-tical point of view, and which can also be used to evaluate the social viability of CBT projects and expe-riments.

Keywords

• Community-based tourism
• Turismo comunitario
• Community
• Ecuador