Abstract
Community-based tourism (CBT) has the potential to bring about social inclusion for the residents of the community. Because CBT is community-managed, residents have greater power to control their role, the narrative, and their benefits than in traditional tourism endeavors into low-income communities. Despite this potential CBT faces a myriad of obstacles, first in getting the tourism projects started and then in sustaining them. Some of this is due to internal factors within their communities, but more often it is related to structural issues outside of the community’s control. Further, the relational dynamics produced during the tourist-local encounter are not always supportive of social inclusion and can actually serve to remind communities of their exclusion. This chapter highlights the potential for CBT to foster social inclusion, before detailing the obstacles to achieving that goal. In identifying the challenges, CBT maintains its potential to bring about social inclusion.
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McKenna, E.F. (2021). Social Inclusion in Low-Income Communities via Community-Based Tourism. In: Liamputtong, P. (eds) Handbook of Social Inclusion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48277-0_113-1
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