Factors that facilitate and inhibit community-based tourism in natural areas of developing countries

Abstract

There is a spectrum of factors that facilitate and inhibit community-based tourism (CBT) initiatives. They apply internationally, but are different for developed and developing nations. This study determined through a content analysis of 68 case studies a detailed set of factors that facilitate and inhibit community based tourism in natural areas in a selection of developing countries. The results show that there are 25 external and 52 internal factors found in case studies that are potentially applicable to all developing countries encompassed by the research and generally correspond with lists/models/frameworks created by various authors and published in the literature. This research pointed out weaknesses of models/frameworks and proposed an addition of factors to create a more complete framework. Based on the results, a methodology to evaluate factors that facilitate and inhibit CBT initiatives in natural areas of developing countries was created that can serve as a framework for comparison of CBT initiatives as well as for statistical analysis of interactions among different factors.