COMMUNITY TOURISM

The last decades the tourism Industry has seen birth a new kind of tourism, based in the aboriginal communities who have seen in the tourism an opportunity to improve the economies in their territories.

One of the more important things in this kind of tourism is the planning, thinking in a sustainable way. It is necessary to form a team integrated by the consultants and representants of the community. This team has to plan, thinking in the environmental and cultural protection, economical development and integrating at the whole population in the project.
This is a very important point because the consultants are in the habit of committing the mistake of to plan without to take the point of view of the population and they are who know better the place and theirs problems.

Next point, “to create a good marketing” is very important and has to be planned carefully and meticulously. To understand better it is necessary to think that this kind of tourism is new and travel agencies that work distributing and promoting the tourist packages, and the public in general, don’t know what is community tourism, so the market is very small and it is necessary to find customers and to connect them. This problem has created the die of many projects because they didn’t have a good marketing, transforming them in economically not viable.

Finally I would like to add that this tourism offer a lots of opportunities but the communities must not commit the mistake of changing completely their economies, because if they do that the tourism won’t be sustainable and it is possible that they end worse than they began.

It is necessary to think that TOURISM is a complement
of the economy and helps at the rural development,
and it is not the only solution.