Community Development through Tourism: Identifying Communities for Implementing a Community Visitor Management System
Creators: name: Dupuis Zorrilla, Alexandro
Publisher: name: Environmental Design
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Social Structure and Development
subject: Tourism
subject: FOS: Economics and business
subject: Sustainable development through tourism
subject: Community tourism development
subject: Community development through tourism
subject: Mexico tourism development
subject: Sustainable tourism development
subject: tourism and sustainability
subject: Community Visitor Management System
subject: Tourism Planning
subject: Sustainable tourism

description: Identidad y Desarrollo, a Mexican consultancy firm focused on promoting sustainable development through tourism, has generated a methodology to work with local communities in Mexico to improve host-visitor relationships: the Community Visitor Management System (CVMS). However, the vast universe of localities throughout the country that receive tourists and could potentially acquire benefits from CVMS application makes it difficult to determine which localities could obtain better results. This situation, added to the limited amount of resources and the necessity to obtain the best possible results led to the question: Can localities be assessed for their readiness to implement the CVMS? As a framework for the research I explore the concepts and trends in tourism and sustainability, such as the transition from mass or traditional tourism to more specialized and locally respectful activities such as alternative tourism, eco-tourism and cultural tourism and the evolution from a value chain perception to a value network of tourism with multiple linkages amongst stakeholders involved in the tourism system. The importance of participatory planning at the scale of individual localities is outlined, as well as its relevance on tourism planning to achieve positive impacts on host-visitor relationships during tourism interactions. To tackle the research question, an exploratory approach was used and a pilot assessment tool was designed to evaluate CVMS readiness by comparing a series of factors related with sustainable tourism development which are presented as indicators of existing or non-existing elements at a local scale. These indicators were aggregated into themes and sub-themes and a weighted value method was used to assign a quantitative value to each of the indicators and themes, which were used to calculate the CVMS readiness score of each locality. Expert informants were interviewed about the relevance and design of the assessment tool, which was later tested in two localities in Mexico: Temoaya and Malinalco. The pilot application involved the participation of three local stakeholders in each community related with tourism planning and operation, who evaluated their localities and the relevance of the tool for tourism development. Finally, this research concludes that the assessment tool is applicable and could provide a first step for CVMS implementation as it engaged local stakeholders and helped to gather important information about the localities and their development conditions related with the proposed system. On the other hand, further research lines were identified to increase the certainty of the assessment related with the application of the tool in a larger sample of localities, the possibility of including qualitative analysis through a Likart scale, include an assessment of conflict and power relations and compare the obtained results with the implementation of CVMS and its actual impacts in communities.