Turismo comunitario en Ecuador. Comprendiendo el community-based tourism desde la comunidad
- Ruiz Ballesteros, Esteban
- Hernández Ramírez, Macarena
- Coca Pérez, Agustín
- Cantero Martín, Pedro A.
- Campo Tejedor, Alberto del
ISSN: 1695-7121
Year of publication: 2008
Volume: 6
Issue: 3
Pages: 399-418
Type: Article
More publications in: Pasos: Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural
Abstract
The growing impetus of community-based tourism (CBT) as a means of achieving sustainable tourism and a strategy for social development forces us to seek a deeper understanding of this phenomenon. This paper proposes an analytical focus on the community as a theoretical/methodological tactic. The empirical reference point in this research paper is the concept of turismo comunitario (TC) in Ecuador, where five communities were chosen to conduct an in-depth ethnographic study. By means of a conclusion, a comprehensive framework is put forward for TC, founded on three main pillars: the analytical centrality of the communities; the consideration of TC as a ‘translation’ rather than an ‘adaptation’ to the market; and the fortifying - rather than debilitating - nature of TC for the communities involved. This provides a series of factors that can be used to gain a general understanding of CBT, from a theoretical point of view, and which can also be used to evaluate the social viability of CBT projects and experiments.