Implications of Responsible Tourism for Conservation and Development in Southern Africa - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 346

income of $371 per household, for the 600-household Lekgophung community.
This is substantial, given that the lodge only has 16 beds. Considering all of the
establishments, Relly estimates that the 1850 households in the area had an
average income of $225 per month in 2003 to $373 in 2007: reflecting a 65 per
cent increase in nominal terms. Building from this solid baseline information,
Relly promotes the need for further work at the household level to investigate
multiplier effects and non-labour lodge expenditure. This type of study is vitally
important in demonstrating tangibly the type of local economic benefits that can
be provided by nature-based tourism destinations, and that can be used to track
changes in impacts over time as more responsible practices are implemented.
This section of the topic demonstrates that responsible nature-based tourism
can have substantial positive impacts in both the local economy and biodiversity
conservation, but that the level of those impacts depends on a number of critical
factors. For example, to enhance local economic development, nature-based
tourism needs to include meaningful equity and ownership of businesses by local
people; skills development so that residents in destinations can be employed in
managerial, rather than menial positions; it requires transparency of decision
making and equitable distribution of tourism benefits to ensure good relationships
and reduce conflict; and it is important to adopt a destination approach in order
to achieve economies of scale in areas where poverty is widespread. The chapters
also show clearly the importance of monitoring, verifying and reporting the
economic, environmental and social indicators to demonstrate progress in
responsible tourism. Without tangible and comparable information, it is not
possible to track whether tourism is actually more responsible than a 'business as
usual' approach.
Part 3: Community-based tourism
The community-based tourism section of the topic opens with a review of the
impacts of 215 accommodation enterprises in Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius,
Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania,
Zambia and Zimbabwe by Anna Spenceley. A systematic survey of community-
based tourism enterprises (CBTEs) reveals that although there are some success
stories, the majority struggle to survive with problems of accessibility in remote
locations, limited market access, poor promotion, low motivation and constrained
communication. Apparently interventions by third parties (e.g. NGOs, donor
agencies, etc.) have not promoted business plans or market-led approaches of the
CBTEs, because the intermediaries were primarily focused on capacity building
and empowerment of the poor rather than commercial viability. Despite operating
from a difficult basis, the CBTEs demonstrate tangible benefits to local people,
including the employment of 2504 people and access to finance, community
infrastructure, education and product development. Local procurement totalled
nearly US$1 million per annum on products such as craft, food, décor, building
materials and services including entertainment, guiding, catering and construc-
tion. Most of the enterprises consider that they practise sustainable tourism, with