Assessing community- based tourism (CBT) in Mae Kampong village, Thailand; to what extent is “Homestay†project successful and what are the challenges to ensure that local community benefits from the tourism.
Author: Wilaiporn Saisuk
2 Commentries
Abstract:
In response to the negatives impacts of mass tourism in the 1980s, community- based tourism becomes the new route for development, as tourism growth does not often benefit the local community or the poor. A discussion of “homestay†community-based project in Mae Kampong, northern Thailand, to what extend is CBT project successfully in helping local community benefit from tourism and what are the challenges.
Keywords: Community-based tourism (CBT), homestay, benefit, challenge, Mae Kampong, poverty, tourism.
Mae Kampong village is now well known as a model for community-based tourism (CBT) because of the promotion by the tourism officials. The village located 50 Kilometres from the capital of Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand (one of Thailand’s most visits tourist destinations) received 2.5 million domestic tourists and 1.9 million international tourists in 2011.With a rapid growth within the tourism industry, this causes negatives narrative regarding tourism in Thailand such as mass tourism, environment, and social impacts. Hence, community-based tourism (CBT), environmental activities, none – governmental organisation (NGO) and public officials has become over the past decade an important component of the domestic tourism market (Kontogeorgopoulos et al., 2014).
While there are many argument that community-based tourism for being too small-scale to effectively help reduce poverty, many studies argued that the community-based tourism can have a greater benefits, for example, shifting power to local, environmental and cultural preservation, community involvement, improving social economic within the community and lastly increased strength for sustainable improvement (Dolezal, 2015).
Around the globe, community-based tourism will contain different meanings, depending on the country’s cultural, social, political and economic background. “Homestay†is an authentic community-based tourism project, signified to accommodation in the local family home. Providing tourists with opportunities to experience first hand and learn Thai traditional simple ways of life, by close interaction exchanging, joining with the local family everyday activities (Harada, 2016).
Of course a journey to become successful means facing the challenges along the way such as; lacking on marketing side, unfair sharing of benefits between homestay agencies and local, not meeting hospitality service standards, misunderstandings between tourist and local family of each other’s needs and motivations, lacking of facilities, and the government regulation and planning were not properly in place, and lastly the language barrier remain a common challenge in homestay CBT when local and tourists interact with each other. Interactions were sometimes taking a form of sign language rather than communication among themselves (Dolezal, 2015).
Initially, in Mae Kampong village there were only five locals joining the homestay in 2000. Though, each year the number of local homestay operators took a steady growth to now having 24 all homestays altogether. The number of tourists received was not the best as the community only gets around 100 visitors each year.
Nevertheless, in the year 2006, the village number of visitors increases to 3000 to 4000 visitors each year. Then, in 2012 the villages received an excellent number of tourists of 4657, though it is un-cleared whether it was because of a new trend or just a successful year. As Around 80% of tourists stayed overnight with a homestay local, but the remaining 20% of tourists just visit the community on either a one-day package tour (Kontogeorgopoulos et al., 2014)
Due to the success of homestay CBT, this has reached not just around the community but beyond, led Mae Kampong village received Thailand Tourism Award for community-based tourism in 2007 by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and a Gold award for cultural tourism in 2010 by a Pacific Asia Association (PATA) .
When assessing the successful of CBT project, this will depend largely on the country perceptions of the CBT and expectations. If the success of CBT project means gaining and improving economic, reduce poverty (benefit the local community), or removed the local from the vulnerability of agricultural, then without any doubt, Mae Kampong village can be seen as very effective. As local people are received 520 baht per each tourist for one-night accommodation including two meals a day, 350 baht directly contribute to the local household revenue and 170 baht goes to the community cooperative (Harada, 2016). Studies also show the contribution of tourism increase the community revenue with a remarkable growth of the household income. Around 80,000 baht was generating in the year 2000 and total revenue of the community in 2012 was around 2.6 million baht (Kontogeorgopoulos et al., 2014).
Overall the case of Mae Kampong village shows that tourism can alleviate poverty, by providing a greater benefit to the local community, creating varieties of income resources as well as opens the gap of employment opportunities, improved local individual and families quality of life and enabled them to contribute and work together as one community (Harada, 2016).
References:
Dolezal, C. (2015). The tourism encounter in community-based tourism in Northern Thailand: Empty meeting ground or space for change? ASEAS – Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 8(2), 165-186.
Harada, K. (2016) The Village in Transition: Development and Cultural, Economic, and Social Changes in Mae Kampong Village, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Proceedings of International Conference on Science, Technology, Humanities and Business Management, 29 -30 .
Kontogeorgopoulos, N., Churyen, A. and Duangsaeng, V. (2014) Success Factors in Community-Based Tourism in Thailand: The Role of Luck, External Support, and Local Leadership. Tourism Planning & Development, 11:1, 106-124.
In response to the negatives impacts of mass tourism in the 1980s, community- based tourism becomes the new route for development, as tourism growth does not often benefit the local community or the poor. A discussion of “homestay†community-based project in Mae Kampong, northern Thailand, to what extend is CBT project successfully in helping local community benefit from tourism and what are the challenges.
Keywords: Community-based tourism (CBT), homestay, benefit, challenge, Mae Kampong, poverty, tourism.
Mae Kampong village is now well known as a model for community-based tourism (CBT) because of the promotion by the tourism officials. The village located 50 Kilometres from the capital of Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand (one of Thailand’s most visits tourist destinations) received 2.5 million domestic tourists and 1.9 million international tourists in 2011.With a rapid growth within the tourism industry, this causes negatives narrative regarding tourism in Thailand such as mass tourism, environment, and social impacts. Hence, community-based tourism (CBT), environmental activities, none – governmental organisation (NGO) and public officials has become over the past decade an important component of the domestic tourism market (Kontogeorgopoulos et al., 2014).
While there are many argument that community-based tourism for being too small-scale to effectively help reduce poverty, many studies argued that the community-based tourism can have a greater benefits, for example, shifting power to local, environmental and cultural preservation, community involvement, improving social economic within the community and lastly increased strength for sustainable improvement (Dolezal, 2015).
Around the globe, community-based tourism will contain different meanings, depending on the country’s cultural, social, political and economic background. “Homestay†is an authentic community-based tourism project, signified to accommodation in the local family home. Providing tourists with opportunities to experience first hand and learn Thai traditional simple ways of life, by close interaction exchanging, joining with the local family everyday activities (Harada, 2016).
Of course a journey to become successful means facing the challenges along the way such as; lacking on marketing side, unfair sharing of benefits between homestay agencies and local, not meeting hospitality service standards, misunderstandings between tourist and local family of each other’s needs and motivations, lacking of facilities, and the government regulation and planning were not properly in place, and lastly the language barrier remain a common challenge in homestay CBT when local and tourists interact with each other. Interactions were sometimes taking a form of sign language rather than communication among themselves (Dolezal, 2015).
Initially, in Mae Kampong village there were only five locals joining the homestay in 2000. Though, each year the number of local homestay operators took a steady growth to now having 24 all homestays altogether. The number of tourists received was not the best as the community only gets around 100 visitors each year.
Nevertheless, in the year 2006, the village number of visitors increases to 3000 to 4000 visitors each year. Then, in 2012 the villages received an excellent number of tourists of 4657, though it is un-cleared whether it was because of a new trend or just a successful year. As Around 80% of tourists stayed overnight with a homestay local, but the remaining 20% of tourists just visit the community on either a one-day package tour (Kontogeorgopoulos et al., 2014)
Due to the success of homestay CBT, this has reached not just around the community but beyond, led Mae Kampong village received Thailand Tourism Award for community-based tourism in 2007 by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and a Gold award for cultural tourism in 2010 by a Pacific Asia Association (PATA) .
When assessing the successful of CBT project, this will depend largely on the country perceptions of the CBT and expectations. If the success of CBT project means gaining and improving economic, reduce poverty (benefit the local community), or removed the local from the vulnerability of agricultural, then without any doubt, Mae Kampong village can be seen as very effective. As local people are received 520 baht per each tourist for one-night accommodation including two meals a day, 350 baht directly contribute to the local household revenue and 170 baht goes to the community cooperative (Harada, 2016). Studies also show the contribution of tourism increase the community revenue with a remarkable growth of the household income. Around 80,000 baht was generating in the year 2000 and total revenue of the community in 2012 was around 2.6 million baht (Kontogeorgopoulos et al., 2014).
Overall the case of Mae Kampong village shows that tourism can alleviate poverty, by providing a greater benefit to the local community, creating varieties of income resources as well as opens the gap of employment opportunities, improved local individual and families quality of life and enabled them to contribute and work together as one community (Harada, 2016).
References:
Dolezal, C. (2015). The tourism encounter in community-based tourism in Northern Thailand: Empty meeting ground or space for change? ASEAS – Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 8(2), 165-186.
Harada, K. (2016) The Village in Transition: Development and Cultural, Economic, and Social Changes in Mae Kampong Village, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Proceedings of International Conference on Science, Technology, Humanities and Business Management, 29 -30 .
Kontogeorgopoulos, N., Churyen, A. and Duangsaeng, V. (2014) Success Factors in Community-Based Tourism in Thailand: The Role of Luck, External Support, and Local Leadership. Tourism Planning & Development, 11:1, 106-124.