In the following blog entry you will read something about Community-based tourism and its impacts. I hope to inform you properly about it and in case you dis-/agree with me or have some questions open, please contact me and I am open for providing more information. Enjoy reading my blog.
What is Community based tourism?
Community based tourism or further referred to as CBT is a form of tourism which takes place apart from mass tourism in local communities. Further it takes the environmental-, social- and cultural aspects into account. CBT can be in rural as well as in urban areas and the development status does not play a role. Important is that the community is in charge of all operations and that CBT provides only a supplement income and is not ones main income. Next to providing a supplement income, the exchange of cultures and generating benefit for the whole community are from major importance. Tourists can either participate only in activities or stay overnight.
Positive impacts from CBT
As aforementioned stated one important aspect is to generate a benefit for the whole community. CBT is a tool which a high potential to ensure a recession in poverty. This is due to the fact that with CBT, labour is created and locals which are not involved in CBT have often the opportunity to sell their home made products to the tourists, thus, there is an additional income for the direct involved participators and the community members which are only indirect involved in CBT. 
CBT encourages the community members to develop a deeper understanding of the importance of the conservation and protection of natural assets. Both locals and tourists gain a higher awareness of the importance of the nature and work together to conserve and restore already damaged natural sites. With the help of the income generated by CBT the community members are able to fund activities to conserve, restore and protect their natural assets. Furthermore, the community is able to invest their income into the development of more environmental friendly technology.
Especially Thailand has a waste problem and from my own observations in some communities, the locals them-self throw waste into the nature. CBT makes the locals aware of their waste problem, as on the one hand it makes not a good impression to tourists when the community is littered and the locals learn more about the causes of waste to the environment.
One benefit of CBT is that different kind of people come together. Domestic tourists as well as International tourists participate in CBT and thus, the community members need to learn how to communicate with foreign tourists. In Thailand the people are rather shy and one benefit of CBT is that the locals build self-confidence and improve their communication and speaking skills. There is not only an improvement in the skills of the individual community members, the whole community improves it skills, such as organization, planning and overall management skills.
Another advantage is that the community gets strengthen as a group itself. The community has to rely on each other’s skills and knowledge and the members have to work together in order to offer a community-based tourism experience to the tourists to a satisfactory level of all parties. Working closely together and discovering each other’s strengths, strengthens in the best case the bond between the community members and a foundation of trust, teamwork and collaboration can be laid for future generations. The stronger bond and self-confidence results in a greater decision-making power and the community dares to stand up for their own needs and rights in the public- and the private sector. The community builds up empowerment.
In CBT every single community member can play an important role, it does not matter whether one is young or old, female or male, disabled or not disabled for instance. Every community member has his/her own strong points and skills, which can be useful for CBT and in developing further the community. Thus, the sense of belonging and importance can be increased via CBT. Commu