Local Impacts of Community-based Tourism in Southern Africa - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 272

Non-
Governmental
Organisation
(NGO), 3.76%

Not known
6.20%

Church, 10.74

Private
Individual/
Company/
Lease, 40.91%

Community trust
/ organisation,
30.05%

Government,
4.13%

Individual
entrepreneur,
53.52%

Community
organisation
(e.g. trust),
9.50%

Shareholders,
2.35%

Community
(Communal
Land), 28.51%

Private
individuals
(more than 1),
10.33%

Figure 13.4 Land ownership ( left ) and business ownership ( right )

Community involvement
The land that most of the enterprises were based on was owned by private
individuals, a company or was leased (45.4 per cent). The host community or a
community-based organization owned the land of many enterprises (42.2 per
cent). The owners of most businesses were individual entrepreneurs (52.3 per
cent) followed by community trusts or community organizations (29.4 per cent)
(Figure 13.4). Increasing the extent of equity that people have in destinations can
be a powerful way to enhance local benefits and participation in the tourism
industry.
Half of the CBTEs reported that members of the community made decisions
about how the tourism enterprise was run (50.0 per cent). The mechanism for
doing so included meetings (27.5 per cent), through an elected community trust
or committee (19.3 per cent), joint decision making (10.6 per cent), using a
village representative or council (7.3 per cent). Some indicated that the commu-
nity was involved in planning (5.1 per cent), and decided how to use funds (3.2
per cent), or that there were informal visits or discussions (1.8 per cent).

Socioeconomic impact

The 218 enterprises employed a total of 2644 people between them, including
1587 men (60.0 per cent), 1048 women (39.6 per cent) and 9 youths under the
age of 17 (0.3 per cent). Of these, 2504 employees were from the local commu-
nity (94.7 per cent). The average number of employees per enterprise was 12.1
people, ranging between 0 and 300 staff. These figures have very good implica-
tions for local wages and also for the role of women in tourism.
Enterprises reported a wide range of benefits that the local community gained
from the enterprise. Most frequently they reported access to finance (45.0 per
cent), employment (38.5 per cent) and community infrastructure development
(30.3 per cent), followed by training (28.9 per cent) and product purchasing