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Chapters highlight an array of topics, including community-inclusive
tourism strategies, the marketing of community tourism and dealing
with crisis.
Research-based case studies illustrate how things work in the
natural world. Examples come primarily from English-speaking countries
-- Australia,
Canada, Europe,
New Zealand
and the United States.
Beeton, an associate professor at La
Trobe University, has extensive experience working with communities
developing tourism and has written widely on sustainable tourism,
film-induced tourism and national park management. She participated
in Planeta's 2002 Communities and Tourism e-conference.
EXCERPTS
Many indigenous communities are based on a complex hierarchy
of familial ties, which for many tourists from Western cultures
where extended family ties are diminishing is a fascinating concept
that they wish to view, experience and understand. (p. 5)
Tourism is more complex than many people believe it to be. There
is a general unspoken belief in Western culture that as most of
us have been on a holiday, consequently, we understand tourism.
Such a simplistic notion would be laughable if it was not so common.
(p. 17)
Governments in most Western-based democracies have been moving
towards devolving many of their responsibilities upon the regional
(local/community) level. In order to do this successfully requires
that there are adequate arrangements for reporting and accounting
for the outcomes of the various programs and responsibilities
taken on at the local level. In addition, these programs need
to be monitored and assessed for their effectiveness. This requires
the development of sustainability indicators that can be used
at the regional/local scale. (p. 66)
The 'community' becomes involved when they notice more people
in town, their roads deteriorating due to carrying increased vehicles,
particularly heavy tour buses, when the local café goes
'gourmet,' or when tourists keep ending up at the wrong property
(that's when they also ask for signage!). Unfortunately, it often
takes negative aspects to motivate us, which can be too late as
far as developing a positive rural tourism industry. (p. 154)
There's nothing like a tourism disaster to demonstrate how important
tourism is to a region. For example, the Foot and Mouth crisis
in England was recognized as a great loss to the agricultural
community, yet the potential cost in relation to rural tourism
in 2001 is L5 billion. According to GDP figures, rural tourism
in the United Kingdom is worth over four times the value of agriculture.
(p. 224)
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