A conceptual review of homestay community resilience factors - Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research - page 590

homestay tourism business is to identify, enhance,
and promote community resiliency. This article
describes what is known, identifies conceptual
gaps, and proposes how homestay community
resilience can be used for family interventions.

is important to widen a tourist destination. This is
due to the fact that tourism planning will affect the
whole community, for example, the awareness of
tourism is based on the local community's attitude
and their evaluation on the environment, infra-
structure and events, and the degree of involvement
by the local community exerts a strong influence
on the tourist's experience.
According to Ministry of Tourism and Culture
(MOTAC, 2013), the homestay program is one of
the most successful programs to improve rural-
based tourism. A significant increase of 38.4%
occupancy rate had been recorded compared to
24.9% in 2011. From January to May 2012, the
number of domestic tourists was 110,322 and
23,367 foreigners which make a total of 133,689
tourists who visited homestays in Malaysia. As
compared to the previous year in the same period,
a 70.7% increase can be seen where it was only
78,333 tourists. For the first five months of 2012,
tourist receipts from homestay program boomed
to RM 7,376,446.50 from RM 4,817,158.30 in Jan-
uary to May 2011. The improved spending by the
tourists helped the rural economy to some extent
and this has shown a positive impact to encourage
local communities to get involved with rural-based
tourism while at the same time maintaining their
traditions and identities.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Defining community-based homestay tourism
and homestay community
Community-based homestay tourism is regarded
as a potentially good product in promoting the
country as well as getting the community involved
in the travel industry (Ibrahim & Rashid, 2010). In
Malaysia, apart from being seen as a way to aid
in generating income for the community, homestay
tourism contributes in achieving the Government's
agenda to build job opportunities and eliminate
poverty of the communities involved (Pusiran &
Xiao, 2013). The concept of community-based
tourism is dependent largely on the participation
of the local community. Community-based tour-
ism appeared as a potential solution to the mass
tourism's negative effects in developing countries.
It is also one of the strategies for the community to
achieve better living conditions (Russell, 2000).
The main idea is for the community to create a
project that presents a sustainable development and
promote the relationship between local community
and visitors (Ibrahim & Rashid, 2010). To develop
a tourism product as such, the core characteristic
is to incorporate hotel management, food and bev-
erages, complementary services and tourism man-
agement. Not to forget other sub-systems such as
infrastructure, health, education and environment
(Cioce, Bona & Ribeiro, 2007). It should be noted
that community-based tourism is protected and
supported by various international organizations
such as the World Tourism Organization (2002)
and some of the aim is towards achieving a high
quality visitor experience, conservation of natural
and cultural resources, development of social and
economic and community's empowerment and
ownership.
Furthermore, the focal benefits of community
tourism are the economic impact on communities,
improvements of socioeconomic and a more sus-
tainable lifestyle diversification (Manyara & Jones,
2007; Rastegar, 2010). According to the swap of
knowledge, analysis and ability among members
of the community, it is definitely a useful method
of executing policy coordination, attaining syner-
gies, and avoiding disagreement between different
actors in tourism (Kibicho, 2008). According to
Briedenhann and Wickens in 2004, how the whole
community partakes in the development of an area

2.2 History of the concept of resilience
The concept of resiliency may be applied to numer-
ous entities, define at different level of aggregation.
The term “resilience” will undoubtedly take on dif-
ferent and expanded meaning as it is used by prac-
titioners and other disciplines. For example in the
context of organization resiliency, Caralli, Stevens,
Willke & Wilson (2004) define operational resil-
iency as the organization's ability to adapt and to
manage risks that originate from day to day opera-
tion. Organizations that have resilient operation
are able to systematically and transparently cope
with disruptive event so that the overall ability of
the whole organization to meets its mission is not
affected.
In personal health, for example, resiliency is the
ability to spring back from and successfully adapt
to adversity. An increasing body of research from
the field of psychology, psychiatry, and sociology
reported that most people including young people
who can promptly bounce back from risk, stress,
crises and trauma would certainly experience life
success (Manyena, 2006).
In physics and engineering, resilience is defined
as the capacity of a material to absorb energy when
it is deformed elastically and upon unloading to
have this energy recovered (Holling, 1996). In other
words, it is the maximum energy per volume that