COMMUNITY-BASED TOURISM AND DESTINATION COMPETITIVENESS: BRIDGING THE GAP

Abstract

This article proposes a model to measure Community-Based Tourism (CBT). Its starting point is the need to better quantify and explain CBT in emerging countries. The authors build it by drawing a connection between local competitiveness and CBT frameworks, therefore calling the proposed model C-CBT. By grounding this measurement model, the pushers for this type of tourism, as well as its deterrents, are established and grouped. This model is then used as a comparative tool and applied to two territories in Colombia that have suffered from civil unrest in the last decades and have subsequently developed CBT. As for the field work in the two areas, it is based on interviews and participative observation carried out in the context of tourism projects. The outcome is a clearer measurement system for CBT initiatives by connecting these to competitiveness frameworks, with the added interest that the cases presented come from a severely conflict-burdened country.