Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
difficult to develop community tourism in remote tourism areas away from the
'tourism capital' of Livingstone. Furthermore, community tourism was in danger
of being undermined by its weak legal status as there was no enabling legal frame-
work to cater for their needs and this inhibited business partnerships with
companies.The research therefore concluded that in order to increase net benefits
to the poor from tourism a wider range of actions were needed that go beyond
promoting community tourism, although work at the grassroots level to develop
enterprises and local capacity is one key component.
Discussion
Community tourism is 'in vogue' in Zambia but the research echoed other critical
appraisals in that, if the scale and the success rate of community tourism enter-
prises are too small, the challenge is a case of 'trickle up' not 'trickle down'
(Ashley, 1995, p39). The major reason for poor performance and failure was that
projects were not market-oriented. A review of community tourism in Namibia
also argued that 'if tourism businesses are to succeed, they need to be understood
within the context of successful business practices and the realities of markets and
consumer demand' (Hitchens and Highstead, 2005, p2). Indeed, the persistent
neglect of the market is of major concern as it is a key reason why pro-poor
tourism approaches continue to go wrong (Ashley and Goodwin, 2007).
It has been controversially contended that conservationists are not suited to
work in enterprise development, that '
far too little is known about what is really
happening in the field
' and that the 'packaging' of non-governmental and donor
project reports exaggerates success or downplays questionable results (Chapin,
2004, p30). Field research in Zambia supported these assertions. Several commu-
nity tourism projects were alarmingly ill-conceived and/or poorly implemented
giving inappropriate and unattainable roles to local people who had no business
or tourism experience. Spectacular failures were not known about. Moreover,
contrary to positive publicity for fundraising purposes, several interventions by
NGOs had in fact resulted in wasted technical, financial and community
resources, disappointed expectations and disillusioned local people.
Failures and accountability aside, the author argues that interventions in
southern Africa can be more successful and cost effective if and when due
diligence is paid to lessons learnt. The fact that tourism is a highly competitive
service industry must be assimilated by NGOs, donor and government agencies.
There are 'hidden treasures' exhibiting high potential (Dixey, 2004) but expecta-
tions of what, where and how community tourism can deliver must be realistic.
Moreover, community tourism is likely to remain '
only one tiny, and difficult, aspect
of participation by the poor in tourism value chains
' (Ashley, 2006, p3).
It is encouraging that Zambia, like some other African countries, has made
policy commitments to harness tourism for poverty reduction. However, the
author strongly cautions that community tourism, like 'community conservation',
has become a privileged solution - '
so self evidently the “right” approach, on a range
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