Tourism and Community Development Issues - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 204

Connecting the past to the future
Community tourism is a community celebrating its own greatness and inviting
strangers to join the celebration. To be clear, while it is about preserving heritage,
it is also about the evolution of a heritage. It need not freeze landscapes or
cultural practices and traditions. It is about honoring the past and connecting
it to the future in a dynamic evolution of the living culture of the local popu-
lation - celebrating where they came from, defining who they are in the
present and crafting new dreams that extend an unbroken persona of them-
selves into the future through their children. In the end, community tourism
is about preserving the dignity of a people willing to open their hearts to
strangers from other places.
Source: Apo (2004). Reproduced with permission.