Community-based tourism, responsible tourism, and infrastructure development and poverty.

Abstract

Tourism is a major global sector, and its relationship with poverty alleviation is debated. Alternative forms of tourism, such as those which although they are different, namely community-based tourism (CBT) and Responsible Tourism (RT) have been advanced as a strategy associated with community development and poverty alleviation through tourism, when compared to conventional tourism. As such it is fundamental to understand how RT and CBT interact with poverty and community (intended in this paper as disadvantaged community members) development. The article aim is twofold, first, to unpack the RT relationship to general tourism and CBT and secondly, and principally, the infrastructures (roads) development relationship to general tourism and CBT. The article findings seem to demonstrate that the main burdens are passed on to the poor when it comes to the need for the environmental friendliness of their tourism operation and also relate to their exclusion and jeopardised opportunities to CBT development. For example, as a consequence of road construction (specifically for particular sections of a road). The article presents a literature review proposing the general context within which the rest of the article should be considered, thus including issues related to RT and CBT. After that, two case studies serve to show the position of the poor about RT and infrastructure development in the context of CBT.

Keywords

• Tourism
• community-based tourism
• responsible tourism
• South Africa
• community development