Supply analysis in the continuity of community-based tourism - Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research - page 247

Supply analysis in the continuity of community-based tourism

N. Aminudin, W.S.Z. Yahya & N. Sumarjan
Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia

ABSTRACT: Community-based tourism is well known for its novelty in diversifying the economy, alle-
viating poverty, and improving life-quality of the community. Push factors for community-based tourism
usually comes from government support and coordination and cooperation among the community itself.
Although the financial reward is not that great, this supplementary income is not to be belittled. Little is
known however of the continuity capability of this homestay programme after a few years of its opera-
tion. Currently there is an indication that the programme is facing a declining growth in terms of tourism
receipts. Plotting this against Butler's Tourist Area Life Cycle model would mean it is in the stagnation
stage before it eventually reaches the decline stage. Nonetheless this should not be the case because it has
not reached the necessary carrying capacity limit to reach the stagnation stage. A continuation of this
digression would be a loss of income at a premature level. Therefore this study aims to identify the causes
of the declining growth. A qualitative research method with case study was adopted. One to one interview
with five informants which were homestay providers, personal observation and analysis of related docu-
ments are the approaches the researchers adopted. A purposive sampling criterion was used in selecting
the informants. The findings are manually transcribed and analyzed. Results show that high dependency
on the authority and lack in the interest of the second generation in the programme contributed to the
situation. The identifying of factors contributing to the discontinuity of the homestay from the suppli-
ers' perspective is hoped to be a pointer for the homestay programme to be rejuvenated and continue its
competitiveness.

Keywords : Community-based tourism, homestay programme, tourist area life cycle

1 RESEARCH OVERVIEW

satisfaction (Holland, et al., 1998). The Malaysian
scenario of CBT, homestay programme has been
officially in existence about 20 years ago. It is fully
supported by the government and was shaped to
be the platform to introduce the uniqueness of the
rural area and its communities (Ministry of Tour-
ism, 2009). It was recognized through the UNWTO
Ulysses Award in 2012 in the Innovation in Public
Policy and Governance category.
This CBT registered revenue of only RM15.74
million in 2011, compared to revenue of RM58.3
billion for the whole tourism sector, merely 0.26 per-
centage (Statstic Department of Malaysia, 2012).
Its revenue is small but in general it is on a rising
trend especially when more households are joining
the programme. However, tourism receipts from
this programme are showing that in some states,
there is a declining growth (Statstic Department of
Malaysia, 2012). What is worrying is if the declin-
ing situation is on the stagnation stage of Butler's
(1980) Tourist Area Life Cycle (TALC) model. If
no effort taken, it will reach the decline stage soon,
a loss of income at a premature level and could
cause the programme to be shot-lived. According
to TALC, destination areas will undergo a fairly

Community-based tourism is well known for its
novelty in diversifying the economy, alleviating
poverty, and improving life-quality of the com-
munity (Aminudin & A Jamal, 2006) and in some
countries major investments were involved (Holla-
day & Powell, 2013). It is common that commu-
nity-based tourism (CBT) requires support from
local authority and the co-ordination and cooper-
ation of the local community (Sriprasert, Chanin
& Suttara, 2011). These become push factors that
enable a CBT to be successful. It usually does not
have problem in attracting tourists since most CBT
continues to be a niche market within the hospi-
tality industry (Holland, Martin & Shakur, 1998)
since it portrays the lifestyle, culture and herit-
age of the rural host community (Aminudin & A
Jamal, 2006). Although the financial reward is not
that great, this supplementary income to the host
is not to be belittled. It is an economic alternative
which optimize available resources. Other than the
economic benefit, the chance of running own busi-
ness catering to the needs of clients from diverse
nationalities instills a sense of pride and personal