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Sri Lanka attracts thousands of tourists every year. According to the Tourist Board Chairman Udaya Nanayakkara, during the first six months of this year there were over 200,000 arrivals and the trend indicates that we will exceed the past year's arrivals of 500,000. "Our target for the end of this decade is one million tourists," he added.

There is no doubt that tourism has brought enormous benefits to Sri Lanka earning millions of dollars and providing employment to thousands. However, those benefits have come to us at a big cost. Tourism has had a negative impact on our environment. It has led to an erosion in our cultural values.

It has not benefited the poor in our remote rural communities where trekkers travel. Instead of helping to alleviate poverty, tourism seems to have widened the gap between the rich and poor. Therefore, it is time we develop an innovative alternative to minimize these negative effects and provide benefits to the community. And, it is where community tourism comes in.

Maybe the gross economic benefits related to travel and tourism are clear and measurable. But the importance and influence of travel and tourism should go far beyond simple revenues and job creation. Tourism, perhaps more than any other industry, should create a wealth of opportunities and challenges, particularly at the community level.

However, if you analyze our local situation, how this revenue is attracted and the number of people who reap the benefits seem to vary greatly. So does the way the money is spent and how it is reinvested. At one extreme, large scale, all-inclusive resorts owned and operated by big time companies may have little or no economic influence on a community.

Tourists may be flown in, motored to the site, kept 'secure' behind patrolled fences, and in most cases given neither the encouragement nor opportunity to spend time or money beyond the borders of the resort. People from the community may be offered only low-skilled minimum wage jobs.

In these extreme cases, tourism becomes a highly sanitized, in-resort experience. The influence of this type of resort on the community is minimal. In effect, there are tourists, but no tourism industry.

At the other side of the scale, Provincial Governments along with various individuals and groups, small business owners, entrepreneurs, local associations and Government officials are working hard to develop local tourism in their own ways without much success.

Both sectors have failed to accomplish their objectives due to one reason.

They have not understood that successful tourism development depends on the active participation of the local communities.

Responsibility

There is a belief that responsibility for involving local communities in tourism lies with the Government. Many private operators give little thought to the relationship they should be building with their neighbours. Yet, they expect their guests to be safe, with everyone smiling at them. The evidence suggests that far-sighted entrepreneurs, who build up local links, are most successful.

The key approach to local involvement in tourism should not be aid, but private sector development in the relevant communities. In other words, to paraphrase a well-worn saying, "don't give people fish but teach them how to fish".

Tourism authorities always hope that tourism will contribute to national economic growth and to local development in marginalised areas. They want to promote the involvement of local people and disadvantaged communities in the tourism industry, but often don't know how, or make mistakes.

Local enterprises

Tourism developments can create many new enterprise opportunities for local people. However, research shows that these economic linkages cannot be assumed, they need to be encouraged.

Often local people lack the market information, skills, credit, and physical access to markets to set up businesses. Large tourism operators find it easier to import their products and develop 'enclave tourism' with no local links. However, where efforts have been made to use local goods and services, and support complementary enterprises, a wide variety of enterprise links have developed.

The Government can support the informal sector, as this is where local participation in tourism is often highest and ensure that local entrepreneurs have access to capital, training and market information.

It can maximise use of local goods and services inside national sites and parks and other Government-controlled tourism operations. Bureaucratic procedures often mean that Government operations are the worst offenders at ignoring local products.

If tourism is to be sustainable, it must improve the lives of local people, protect their environment and health and offer a better future. In many instances tourism can be seen as a vehicle to empower local communities and protect the environment through the development of new employment opportunities, the enhancement of local economies, preservation of indigenous knowledge and practices, public awareness and education.

Complex and broad based local communities' involvement in tourism development requires targeted investment strategies implemented by Provincial political decision-makers. Those strategies do not exist in many areas and the development of tourism is not planned.

Tourism investments are too often imposed from the Central Government, and the potential for sustainable forms of tourism is weakened. Alternatives to mass tourism, e.g. cultural and ecotourism, can be influential in changing the nature of tourism.

Government's role is, of course, important but it is the private sector that is most likely to invest in tourism development. So how can the power of the private sector be used to support community tourism?

Private companies can't be expected to share profits and power with rural communities simply because it's a kind thing to do. But governments can create the conditions under which it is in their interests to work with communities by giving communities market power and giving the private sector more security of investment and incentives for partnership.

Sustainable tourism

For example: The Government can ask private sector bidders to develop proposals for community partnership, and making this a key criteria in allocating tourism rights. This small change to the planning process can force every new investment to address community tourism issues.

Community-based tourism typically subscribes to a number of broadly defined goals. Perhaps most important one is that community-based tourism is socially sustainable. This means the tourism activities are developed and operated, for the most part, by local community members, and certainly with their consent and support.

This is not to suggest that there aren't dissenting views on tourism development when carried out at the local level, but it does imply that there is a forum for debate, and that the community encourages participation. It's also important that a reasonable share of the revenues are enjoyed by the community in one way or another.

This may include revenue streams which go to co-ops, joint ventures, community associations, businesses that widely employ local people, or to a range of entrepreneurs starting or operating small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Another important feature of community-based tourism is its respect for local culture, heritage and traditions. Often, community-based tourism actually reinforces and sometimes rescues these. Similarly, community-based tourism implies respect and concern for the natural heritage, particularly where the environment is one of the attractions.

The most important aspect of any community-based tourism development plan is ensuring ongoing community involvement. At each stage, awareness and education should be an important element. This will not only keep people interested and supportive, but it will also prepare them to take advantage of opportunities. That is the essence of community-based tourism.

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