Photo: Ulrike Cokl (Bhutanese hospitality)


Photo: Marina Beck (Table Mountain)


Photo: Ulrike Cokl (village tshechu)

Sustainable community based tourism is a concept which aims at benefitting local communities in rural areas by integrating the needs and interests of its members in the planning, implementation and operational processes.

Approaches to the study of tourism in general used to be centred on the guest/host relationship with a special focus on the guest (tourists). In the 90's critical anthropological research shifted more towards the host-centred perspective, examining the impact of tourism on communities. Amongst others the aim was now to expose the inequities that do exist and to develop strategies which should help making tourism development more sustainable.

A very good example for regulated tourism is Bhutan, a constitutional monarchy in the Himalayas, where tourism has been a relatively recent phenomenon. Being aware of the destructive impact of uncontrolled mass tourism, the official tourism policy of the country is based on the principle of sustainability, meaning that tourism must be environmentally and ecologically friendly, socially and culturally acceptable and economically viable. A government regulated tourist tariff (and a lack of infrastructure) minimizes the negative impact of tourism and maintains the number of tourists at a manageable level. This also is in line with the National development concept Gross National Happiness (GNH) which emphasises the importance of the spiritual well-being of a people.

Yet so far Bhutan is not operating community based tourism on a large scale. Tourists are usually on a roundtrip to visit the cultural highlights of the country or on trekking tours, based on pre-paid and pre-planned travel itineraries and they are always accompanied by a tour guide. Individual travelling is restricted and home stays in farmhouses are rare and mostly depend on informal ties of Bhutanese travel agents to their relatives or friends in villages. The regulation of tourism through the government is sensible and necessary but over the past years plenty of guesthouses and hotels have mushroomed and therefore the potential to accommodate a larger number of tourists has increased. There are now also attempts to introduce community based eco-tourism and many villagers perceive this as a chance to earn some money.

The following are only a few considerations that come into mind when thinking about the implementation of community based tourism.
How Bhutan will handle this matter in the future remains to be seen:

- Whereas early adventurers experienced more direct contact when travelling, depending on the local conventions of hospitality and thus also on their own social ability to communicate, today tourists are more or less guests of their own hotel chains, resort complexes, airlines, no matter how "exotic" the places are which they visit. You can nurture on "Wiener Schnitzel" in Kathmandu without ever trying Nepalese food, many cosmetics are available even in the remotest villages and coca cola is omnipresent. Will the policy making authorities choose to develop this type of infrastructure in the villages or will a host centred approach, emphasising the interests and needs of the villagers, prevail?

- If the focus is less on the guest centred perspective and more on the local (community) perspective and on how the communities perceive, deal with and respond to tourism, the notion of "community" clearly becomes a problematic one because it indicates homogeneity although the diversity within communities is greater than still assumed, and members and groups of communities do not benefit from tourism equally. An in-depth knowledge of the socio-political organisation of the communities is essential to develop an integrated approach to community based tourism.

- Tourism is a mediated activity: mediation intervenes and shapes the relationship of guest/host but also focuses on those who stand outside of this relationship but greatly influence the consequences of tourism. The role of the government is central here, especially state/community relations etc.

- Modern tourism plays a decisive role in the reconstruction of group identity and the invention and authentication of traditions as a result of deliberate attempts to engage the interests of tourists or appeal to the imaginations of outsiders.
Ulrike Cokl

Tandi Dorji: Sustainability of Tourism in Bhutan. 2003 54 kb

Ulrike Cokl

Ulrike Cokl is a social- and cultural anthropologist with focus on the Himalayan region, specifically Bhutan. Currently she is working for the Commission for Interdisciplinary Ecological Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She is also involved in Tourism (Alpine Bhutan Travel and Cultures Connect) and plans to do her dissertation project about community based tourism in Bhutan. Yet, her next assignment will be to organise an international conference for IASTAM (The International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine) in Bhutan about "Asian Medicine: Cultivating Traditions and the Challenges of Globalisation" where she will also present a paper.