Universities, NGOs and community-based tourism: Reinventing partnerships.

As part of the 22 April 2025 session of ISTO's ‘Community and Fair Tourism’ Working Group, a round table brought together researchers, stakeholders and fair tourism professionals to discuss: ‘the role of universities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in supporting community tourism initiatives’.

Community-based tourism, sustained on the collective management of projects by local communities, aims to strengthen their economic, social and cultural autonomy. While the ambition is shared, the way it is supported by outside bodies such as universities and NGOs raises many questions. The session provided an opportunity to compare and contrast rich points of view rooted in practical field experience.

The members of the Working Group were delighted to welcome two persons to share their thoughts:

• Maxime Kieffer is a lecturer at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, in the Morelia unit. He studies tourism from a social science perspective and analyses the social, cultural, environmental and economic processes linked to community development, with a particular focus on alternative tourism, agriculture and crafts. He is particularly interested in issues of collective organisation, production and marketing in the field of the social and solidarity economy and sustainable development, drawing on various social science disciplines.
• Alfredo Somoza is an Italian journalist, radio host, essayist and activist. He was the founder and first President of the Associazione Italiana Turismo Responsabile in 1988. Since 2003, he has chaired the Istituto Cooperazione Economica Internazionale (ICEI) in Milan. Since 2019, he has been director of Young Radio and President of Colomba, the association of NGOs in Lombardy. He is also professor of development and cooperation in Latin America at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.

Promising partnerships... provided local knowledge is harnessed

The first point that is widely shared concerns the complementarity between local knowledge and external contributions. Universities and NGOs can provide methodological tools, financial resources, international visibility and technical support. They also contribute to the professionalisation of project leaders by offering appropriate training and facilitating exchanges of experience between communities.

However, these partnerships can only be fruitful if they are based on listening and co-construction. The aim is not to impose models, but to support local dynamics. The participatory action research approach is a promising way forward. It is based on the collective production of knowledge and the involvement of communities at all stages of the project, using original methodologies. An interesting example is the Dubinda role-playing game, which enables participants to explore the implications of tourism development in a small imaginary fishing community, and to draw up recommendations for their own community.

Respecting local timeframes and priorities

The discussions also highlighted a major challenge: Time. The institutional logic of NGOs and universities does not always coincide with the rhythms of communities. Academic or donor-funded projects often follow tight timetables, which are incompatible with the lengthy processes of dialogue, trust-building and collective decision-making.

In several cases, this time lag has been detrimental to the sustainability of projects. For community-based tourism to be truly sustainable, we need to accept uncertainty, respect hesitation and recognise that certain decisions can only be taken by local players, at a time they deem appropriate. At the end of the research or support project, the academics and NGOs must be allowed to step aside, and the community tourism project must continue independently.

Community-based tourism and research: What are the contributions?

On the academic front, the round table recalled the importance of diversifying the forms of knowledge recognised in the field of development. More and more academics are drawing on concepts such as ‘Southern epistemology’, which values knowledge derived from experience, collective memory and rural and ancestral practices. This change of perspective helps to legitimise the voices of communities that are often marginalised in traditional research projects.

With this in mind, universities can also produce practical tools that are directly useful for local projects. One example given was a practical ecotourism guide co-written with the communities, based on the results of doctoral research. Far from being a scientific article, this type of publication allows knowledge to circulate more horizontally.

NGOs: From fragile legitimacy to a catalytic role

For their part, NGOs have long struggled to gain recognition for tourism as a legitimate lever for development. Until the early 2000s, it was absent from the strategies of the major development agencies. Today, things have changed. Numerous projects have been launched in Latin America, Africa, Asia and even Eastern Europe, with growing recognition of the potential of community-based tourism.

However, these projects cannot function without a certain number of prerequisites: Safety, accessibility, basic infrastructure... and above all, a solid collective organisation. Community tourism is not an individual affair. It is based on shared governance mechanisms, equitable distribution of income, and strong involvement of women and young people. As the speakers emphasised, tourism is not a development project like any other, because it is also an economic product that responds to a market logic and must be successful with visitors if it is to survive, even if the objectives of social cohesion and equitable sharing of tourism benefits remain predominant.

Strengthening regional resilience

Another key lesson from the meeting was the need to ensure that tourism never becomes an area's sole source of income. Community tourism must be linked to agriculture, crafts, fishing or any other pre-existing activity. This diversification is essential to ensure the economic resilience of communities, particularly in times of crisis - as demonstrated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Many projects today aim to integrate tourism into more comprehensive strategies for enhancing the value of local areas: Agro-tourism routes, ecotourism circuits, immersive experiences based on local food products, etc. Tourism is thus becoming one of several levers for strengthening the autonomy of rural populations.

The challenge of shared governance

One of the most sensitive issues remains power. How can we ensure that decisions are taken democratically, that internal conflicts are managed transparently, and that inequalities are not reproduced at local level? A number of participatory tools were mentioned, including collaborative mapping, role-playing and problem trees, all of which encourage people to speak out, engage in dialogue and resolve tensions.

But tools are not enough. The will to change must come from within. Projects sometimes stagnate, not because of a lack of resources, but because the stakeholders involved find a balance - however unstable - that suits them. External support can only open up discussion, without forcing transitions.

Towards a change of scale?

In conclusion, while community-based tourism is still a marginal segment in global statistics, it is becoming increasingly widespread in certain regions of the world. It is part of a vision of development centred on local stakeholders, shared knowledge and solidarity. Universities and NGOs have a role to play in this process, as long as they position themselves to support rather than override it.

The debate remains open: Should the notion of community tourism be extended to other forms of local governance? How can we avoid the perverse effects of professionalisation? What alliances should be forged to anchor these practices over the long term? These are just some of the questions that will continue to fuel the debate in a constantly evolving sector.