The International Commercialization of Community-based Tourism, The experience of Latin America

Abstract

The debate regarding the viability of community-based tourism recognizes that marketing is a key factor affecting this tourism management model’s chances of success. It identifies, based on Latin American experiences with the model, the main actors, instruments and strategies that are enabling community-based initiatives’ market access. First, it summarizes the state of the academic debate on marketing community-based tourism. Then, it identifies the dynamics that are connecting community-based tourism with new upward trends in the international tourist market. Based on this growth in demand, processes of direct marketing by the same community initiatives, as well as by intermediary business structures that are pro-community, are becoming more relevant. Finally, it explains how these processes are influencing marketing structures in both sending and receptive countries to facilitate this emerging market segment. The various ongoing processes are still complex and contradictory, and involve new risks and challenges for community-based initiatives and their companions.