Motivation in Community-Based Tourism: Linking Locals to Internationals in Promoting Community Development and Conservation of Natural Resources

Abstract

Community-based tourism (CBT) is known as a strong strategy and tool to promote community development and conservation of natural resources through its various virtues in both developing and developed economies. Local people's active and functional participation is considered as the focal point in CBT practice and development. However, their functional participation doesn't always come instinctively; rather, it requires proper extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in the form of both tangible and intangible, which ultimately help them to influence their behavior and pursuit of goals that may ensure their participation in CBT and to receive various benefits. These benefits are linked to the sustainability of CBT development including community development. Therefore, strategic CBT planning and its implementation are essential to ensure sustainable CBT which can also safeguard the link between the local community people and their guests as well as other stakeholders including internationals to facilitate local community development. This chapter focuses on various theories and concepts of motivation from various fields of research, and efforts have been taken to apply those in the field of CBT development to explore its optimum potential for the sake of human welfare. Moreover, attempts have been taken to use various CBT initiatives in Bangladesh to relate these theories and concepts to evaluate these initiatives as well as to provide some suggestive measures to improve the performance of CBT and to facilitate more community development as a whole.

Citation

Islam, M.W., Ahmed, S. and Mahin, R.T. (2024), "Motivation in Community-Based Tourism: Linking Locals to Internationals in Promoting Community Development and Conservation of Natural Resources", Sharma, A. and Arora, S. (Ed.) Strategic Tourism Planning for Communities (Building the Future of Tourism), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 221-245. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83549-015-020241018