Community-based tourism as a sustainable solution to maximise impacts locally? The Tsiseb Conservancy case, Namibia

Abstract

Based on an in-depth field study in a rural area of Namibia, this article assesses the potential contribution of community-based tourism enterprises (CBTEs) to poverty alleviation and empowerment. It shows that tourism income captured locally improves rural households' livelihoods and generates linkages in the local economy. On the job learning, training sessions and extensive support by non-governmental organisations and donors are further shown to empower rural actors and unlock socioeconomic opportunities for the future. In this context, CBTEs can be characterised as pro-poor initiatives. However, this article provides counter evidence that the sustainability of such community tourism ventures is to be questioned. First, mainstreaming these projects within the competitive tourism commodity chain proves highly challenging and costly; second, communities' institutional and managerial capacity is weak and thus CBTEs' viability is limited; finally, inadequate support by donors and non-governmental organisations fails to tackle challenges faced by community tourism ventures.

Keywords:

• community-based tourism
• livelihoods
• institutional arrangements
• global commodity chains

1. Introduction

International donor agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have long regarded tourism as an industry which could successfully foster economic and human development (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD], 2008) and help alleviate rural poverty in developing countries (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2008; Goodwin, 2009). Building on new political paradigms of people's participation, the ownership and operation of tourism ventures by indigenous people themselves is now increasingly seen as one of the seven mechanisms by which tourism could efficiently help reduce poverty (United Nations World Tourism Organization [UNWTO], 2004).

Broadly defined, community-based tourism (CBT) is an activity which ‘through increased intensities of participation, can provide widespread economic and other benefits and decision-making power to communities’ (The Mountain Institute, 2000). Compared to other institutional arrangements in tourism, it is thought to have three types of advantage at the local level. First, rural communities capture most of the revenue generated on site; thus very little money leaks out of the local economy (CBT minimises leakages occurring at the local level). Second, tourism income received by community-based projects and the associated distributed wages generate significant linkages for the local economy; indeed, the money received helps to support local families and dependants and is spent for local products (CBT maximises linkages). Third, since local inhabitants are fully involved in the management of CBT, rural community members gain institutional and managerial capacity (CBT fosters empowerment and sense of ownership).

As a result, governments, donors and NGOs worldwide have recently been extensively promoting and supporting genuine community-based tourism enterprises (CBTEs), and Namibia, since independence, is no exception. The Namibian Government clearly regards tourism as a sector that makes a vital contribution to poverty alleviation; hence the National Poverty Reduction Strategy states that ‘over the next decade, no other segment of the economy has as much potential to create jobs and generate income for Namibia‘s rural communities’ (National Planning Commission [NPC], 1998:15), On the other hand, the government is also determined to specifically promote community participation in tourism management and benefits. First, the Government White Paper on Tourism (1994) officially advises that high priority be given to ‘the involvement of local individuals and communities in the tourism process and in benefits-sharing’. Second, the 1995 policy for the Promotion of Community Based Tourism calls for the active opening up of opportunities for rural communities, local people and the informal sector to become more involved in the tourism industry, particularly in tourism planning and the running of enterprises.

Building on field research conducted in 2005–2007, this article assesses these alleged advantages of CBTEs in a specific local context in Namibia. It analyses the combined conceptual framework used for this assessment, describes the study area and the field methodology, and presents the main findings. The study found that positive socioeconomic benefits were delivered by one CBTE and had potential linkages for the local economy. However, the article argues that the success and sustainability of such a CBTE is jeopardised by two main factors: the difficulty of being part of the competitive tourism global commodity chain on the one hand, and the local community's lack of institutional and managerial capacity on the other.

2. Conceptual framework

The critical literature has extensively discussed the socioeconomic impacts of tourism activities in developing countries, in particular CBT activities (Scheyvens, 1999; Harrison, 2008; Simpson, 2008).

At the empirical level, most case studies assessing tourism impacts at the local level, especially in eastern and southern Africa and in Asia (Ashley, 2000a; Murphy & Halstead, 2003; Murphy & Roe, 2004; Spenceley, 2008; Tao & Wall, 2009), have so far applied the Sustainable Livelihood Approach (SLA). The SLA is people centred and aims at analysing how a policy or a development programme can sustain people's livelihoods. According to Scoones:

A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while not undermining the natural resource base. (1998:5)

The SLA suggests that local actors are using their assets (human, natural, financial, social and physical stocks of capital available in the household) to adopt strategies and activities which help achieve livelihood outcomes (also analysed as household goals and priorities). In addition, household assets as well as livelihood strategies are largely influenced by the vulnerability context (shocks, trends, seasonality) and policies and institutions; and policies and livelihood outcomes can in turn influence these assets and the vulnerability context (households' resilience to shocks) (Department for International Development [DfID], 1999). Thus, applying this approach allows researchers to evaluate impacts on household (1) assets, (2) strategies and (3) goals and outcomes, both direct and indirect, including non-monetary (Ashley, 2000b:13).

More recently, however, researchers have exchanged this micro-level approach for broader political economy approaches that analyse global processes affecting rural communities in the tourism sector (Uddhammar, 2006; Mitchell & Faal, 2007). Thus tourism activities, including CBTEs, are now rightfully regarded as being part of a network of local, regional, national and international actors, and as a result tourism impacts are increasingly analysed through the lens of the global commodity chain (GCC) theoretical framework. Theoretically, the GCC concept refers to what Gereffi defines as the ‘whole range of activities involved in the design, production, and marketing of a product’ (1999:38). It focuses on economic patterns governing strategies by different actors which relate sequentially or geographically to the finished commodity. Hence, the GCC approach aims to discover the basic power relations and the identity of the primary decision-makers in the commodity chain and who benefits from the economic surplus. In essence, this is a political economy approach that studies the distribution of revenues between actors along the chain (Clancy, 1998). Within this framework, the tourism sector, including Namibia's, is best characterised as a buyer-driven GCC (Clancy, 1998; Gereffi, 1999). In real terms, this means that the control of tourist inflows to and within Namibia lies in tour operators' hands, both at the national and international levels (inbound and outbound tour operators). As a result, most tourism providers (e.g. a guides' association) remain in a captive position where they are subordinated to those actors who hold the real power to govern and control the chain (i.e. the tour operators).

Following Bolwig et al. (2010), it is the author's contention here that, rather than separately applying ‘stand alone’ livelihoods and value chain analyses, researchers should try to combine the two approaches in order to better understand all aspects that affect the potential contribution of CBTEs to rural poverty alleviation, at both the local and the global level. Indeed, as Ponte (2008:10–11) suggests, ‘approaches that look in detail at the local dynamics of livelihoods … can become divorced from an understanding of the broader and more complex social relations and processes created and dissolved through Global Value Chain (GVC) restructuring’. This author further advises that ‘GVC analysis can provide a meso-level tool linking changes at the global level to the dynamics of specific value chains that actually touch down on [i.e. benefit] identifiable communities or regions’. As a result, this article seeks to analyse livelihood impacts of CBTEs at the local level in the broader context of power relations within the competitive Namibian tourism chain.

3. Study site and methodology

The Tsiseb area lies in the Erongo region and is home to around 2000 inhabitants. This large arid zone (803 300 hectares) receives an average rainfall of from 9 mm to 150 mm annually with a very high rate of evaporation. Under these harsh ecological conditions, only the South African-owned formal tin mine, near the town of Uis, provided livelihoods for most of the local people; nevertheless the mine was eventually closed down in 1990 when the country became independent. The unemployment rate in the constituency has therefore rapidly increased to an estimated 46 per cent (NPC, 2003) and, apart from few public jobs and limited business and small mining opportunities, only subsistence farming (goats) can contribute to local livelihoods (Kuper, 1995).

The area was registered in 2001 as a communal ‘conservancy’. Institutionally, this means that the local community has agreed on geographical boundaries, has designed a constitution, and has elected a representative committee to manage the area on its behalf. Once registered as a ‘conservancy’ under the Nature Conservation Ordinance Amendment Act No. 5 (1996), the community (or rather the committee on its behalf) is devolved some rights over wildlife and tourism resources in its territory. On the basis of that legislation, several CBTEs were launched by indigenous groups or individuals in the Tsiseb Conservancy in order to generate some revenue in this poor area: the Daureb Mountain Guides, the Daureb Crafts, the Ugab Wilderness Community Campsite, the Uis information centre, and Vicky's coffee shop. This article focuses on the most important one, the Daureb Mountain Guides (DMG) enterprise.

The research method was an extensive field study of the DMG from May 2005 to July 2007. At the individual and household level, livelihood and life-story questionnaires as well as semi-structured interviews were used to record the perceived socioeconomic impacts of this CBTE. In total, 16 guides were interviewed, 13 in June 2005 and three in September 2006, and follow-up surveys were done in July 2007. Data were further triangulated through focus groups and participatory observation. At the collective and enterprise level, focus groups were organised with the guides, and several important stakeholders in the Tsiseb Conservancy (traditional authorities, Ministry officials, the conservancy chairman, councillor, etc.) were interviewed. Finally, at the industry level, many key informants involved in the tourism sector, both at the local and national level, were interviewed (tour operator managers, tourism association directors, NGO officers, etc.).

4. Study findings: Community-based tourism activities generate revenue and linkages

4.1 The Daureb Mountain Guides CBTE: The institutional context

The Brandberg Mountain is situated in the Tsiseb Conservancy, 50 km northwest of the mining town of Uis. The site contains numerous San (‘Bushman’) paintings and archaeological remains that have long attracted scientists and tourists from all over the world. On a daily basis, most visitors to the mountain hike up to the world-renowned White Lady paintings. The site was proclaimed a National Monument in 1951 by the South African government and subsequently became state property under the custodianship of the parastatal National Monuments Council.1 From 1990, however, regulations for declared National Monuments could not be enforced by the new Namibian government and thus a small group of dedicated community members organised themselves as a tourist guides' association and was able to rapidly take de facto responsibility over the mountain area.

The guides association project was initiated in 1993 by two old men living in the vicinity of the mountain and a group of school boys from the Uis School Environmental Club. At this time, as only very few visitors were asking to be guided to the White Lady paintings, local guides mostly earned money guarding tourists' cars during their free hike. Fortunately, in 1995 the Namibia Community Based Tourism Association (NACOBTA) was formed in order to create a forum that would help community tourism projects to develop and market their product. At this date then, the project officially became a CBTE, called the Daureb Mountain Guides association, and eventually received extensive support from NACOBTA and other donors. NACOBTA provided numerous training courses to DMG guides to improve their skills, and the European Union Namibian Tourism Development Programme and Raleigh International funded the building and renovation of infrastructure on site, such as the reception building, environment friendly toilets, paths, wooden decks, and bars to preserve the rock paintings, at an estimated total cost of N$600 000 (interview, E Humphrey, Community Based Tourism Coordinator, Namibia Tourism Development Programme, Windhoek, April 2005).

Thanks to this assistance, the guides' association became more professional, guides became better qualified, and the product eventually reached the tourism industry's minimum standards. As a result, although it was not compulsory for tourists to use the DMG, visitors to the mountain began to be strongly advised to be guided by the DMG to the White Lady paintings, as NACOBTA had contacted tour operators and travel agencies and asked them to offer this advice.

During the period 2005–2007, about 15 guides, including two women, were members of the DMG association and were working at the mountain. Guides normally work in shifts of 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off. There are five to 10 guides on each shift, depending on the season. A receptionist at the entrance of the gorge collects the guiding fees for the DMG from the visitors. For instance, a guided walk to the White Lady paintings costs N$25 per person, of which three-quarters (N$18.75) goes to the guide and a quarter (N$6.25) to the DMG association. If a guide walks to the paintings with a group of four visitors in the morning and a group of five in the afternoon, he or she will earn N$168.75 for the day and the association will retain N$56.25 (the total amount owed is paid to each guide once the shift is finished). To prevent guides from competing with one another to accompany tourists (especially big groups), a list sets their running order for the day.

Apart from trips to the White Lady paintings, guides also lead tourists to the Koenigstein peak (2574 m), a 3-day trek which necessitates hiring one guide and one or more porters. These trips are directly booked by individual tourists or tour operators by phone at the DMG association office in the Uis Information Centre. When hired as guides, DMG members earn between N$150 and N$200 per day per tourist; when hired as porters, they earn between N$50 and N$200 per day. Here, there is no work shift, the DMG association does not receive any share and individual DMG members keep the whole amount.

Institutionally, all guides in the DMG association elect a Board with a chairman, a vice-chairman, a treasurer and additional members. Monthly meetings are normally held to discuss logistical and financial issues and plan the next month's activities. Annual general meetings are held to elect new Board members and discuss future plans, and emergency meetings may be called for disciplinary hearings and conflict resolution.

4.2 Are CBTEs contributing significantly to poverty alleviation?

Overall, approximately 10 000 visitors annually hike to the White Lady paintings. An estimated N$238 970 total revenue was generated from July 2006 to July 2007. At the individual and household level, the associated livelihood impacts are presented in Table 1 and analysed below.

Table 1: DMG guides' livelihoods: Tourism impacts

Guide	(1) Start at DMG	(2) Date of birth	(3) Grade completed	(4) Goats (n)	(5) Donkeys (n)	(6) Money from guiding and tips (month)	(7) Tips	(8) Money from trips to the peak (year)	(9) Other tourism (month)	(10) Other occupation/income	(11) Other occupation/income	(12) Training sessions (n)	(13) Dependants (n)	(14) Place of permanent residence
Terry	1996	1975	12	0	0	1 200	300	6 000	0	–	–	7	10	Uis
Siegfried	1996	1976	6	6	3	900	140	2 400	350	Sell goats	–	3	5	Sorri-Sorris
Jürgen	1996	1970	10	10	4	1 250	100	0	80	Sell goats	Dig minerals	4	9	Uis
Petrus	1996	1964	3	10	2	900	100	0	300	Sell goats	Gemstones	2	5	Tsiseb
Seth	1999	1976	12	0	0	1 300	150	0	0	Traditional beer	–	7	4	!Gaus
Colin	1997	1970	8	0	0	1 500	200	6 500	200	–	–	6	4	//Gae-oas
Manuel	1999	1984	9	0	0	800	300	6 600	0	–	–	5	6	Uis
Matthews	1996	1969	9	7	8	590	190	0	190	Sell goats	Donkey cart rides	3	6	Bergpos
Johnny	1996	1971	4	0	0	850	50	1 300	200	–	–	3	5	Khorixas
Ernst	1996	1978	11	18	3	1 200	400	6 000	380	–	–	7	6	Uis
Hendrik	1992	1962	3	9	6	760	60	0	230	Sculpt	–	-	3	!Gaus
Christiaan	1996	1977	10	20	6	1 500	250	8 000	0	Sell goats	Mining	7	3	Uis
Alfons	1996	1971	10	20	6	750	100	1 800	325	–	–	8	8	Uis
Gothardine	2005	1984	10	4	0	1 150	300	0	0	–	–	6	4	Uis
John	1998	1980	5	0	0	750^a	150	450	500^a	–	Gemstones	5	8	Uis
Ennethe	2005	1981	10	0	0	1 500	400	0	0	Make & sell bags	Watch livestock	2	4	Uis
Average (16 guides)		1974	8	6.5	2.4	1 056	199	2 441	172	–	–	5.0	6	–
^a750 is a monthly income from guiding at the Brandberg. However, since John only guides at the mountain 6 months per year, this accounts for 375 on average for the whole 12 months. Also note that 500 is a monthly average for ‘other tourism income’ which John receives when he guides groups from Raleigh International for 6 months of the year. He earns 1000 per month for the 6 months, hence a monthly average of 500 for the whole year. Adding together the two sources of income, John actually receives 875 per month on average (and not 750 + 500 = 1350).
Source: Author, data collected from 2005 to 2007, amounts in Namibian dollars.

In 2006 there were only two women among our sample of 16 guides. The average age was 32 (column 2). Almost all guides interviewed had started when the CBTE was officially created (around 1995–1996, see column 1). Most of them came from a poor socioeconomic background in the Tsiseb area, living either in a rural settlement near the Brandberg or in the black township in Uis (column 14). As a result, their personal assets were quite limited (e.g. seven did not own any goats, see columns 4 and 5) and their level of education was low (on average Grade Eight, leaving school at about 14, see column 3).

Given the guides' background, it can be argued that that this CBTE is potentially a pro-poor initiative (Ashley & Goodwin, 2007) and as such could improve poor rural livelihoods; several findings support this hypothesis.

First, on the basis of the questionnaires, it is estimated that the monthly income as a local guide at the mountain, including tips, amounts to around N$1056 (column 6). Of this income, tips account for a significant share (around 20 per cent, column 7). Some of the guides were supplementing this income from other tourism activities. Some of them, exclusively men, were leading tourists to the Koenigstein peak. The survey revealed that these trips generated an annual average of N$2440 per guide (column 8), but that this income was unevenly distributed: seven guides had not earned any money from that activity in the year before being interviewed and only five had been hired several times. Moreover, some were also hired as guides outside the mountain area (by hotels in Uis or by student groups) and/or were selling curios and gemstones to visitors. In column 9, ‘other tourism’ activities accounted for an average extra N$172 per month. Finally, some of the guides were generating income from non-tourism activities (columns 10 and 11): they occasionally sold livestock and a few were also mining minerals on the western side of the mountain when off duty. Nevertheless, compared with tourism revenue, these sources of income remained very limited and erratic.

In total, when compared to the average monthly income per capita in rural areas, estimated at N$410 (NPC, 2006), and the salary of farm workers (less than N$3 per working hour), income from working as a guide proves quite significant. In the current context of globalisation and decreasing prices in agriculture, these tourism revenues further provide for necessary income diversification and risk management through labour force participation outside rural agriculture (Bryceson, 2002; Rigg, 2006).

Second, this tourism activity enabled local guides to secure a relatively stable situation. Building on a life history method (Davis, 2009), the questionnaires revealed that the guides' previous professional trajectories had been erratic. After leaving school, all the respondents had tried to find formal employment, but most of them had not succeeded. As a result, they had been previously unemployed, staying at farms and looking after the family's livestock, or had had only temporary informal jobs, such as mining, selling gemstones along the road, or working as volunteers for Red Cross food distribution programmes. Geographically, most respondents had been living in the Tsiseb area before they became guides, yet some of them had tried to find jobs in other parts of Namibia, particularly in the bigger towns (Windhoek, Kamanjab, Khorixas, Walvis Bay, Rundu). This had proved unsuccessful and they had returned to the Tsiseb area to look for a job locally. In this context, after many unlucky ‘episodes’ and a ‘saw-tooth’ life trajectory (Davis, 2009:160), the DMG tourism project represented one rare local economic opportunity for these young people to stay and sustain their livelihood in their native region.

Third, this new tourism income helps guides to build and increase their financial and physical capital. Some put part of it into a bank account, others use it to buy goats, donkeys and horses – at least seven of the 16 guides had done this. Overall, these newly acquired assets constitute a safety net in case of unlucky events and unforeseen expenses (hospital, funerals, etc.). In addition, this allows local actors to pay for their children's education (school and hostel fees, uniforms, etc.) and plan for future economic opportunities to further improve their household livelihoods (for instance, starting a small business).

Fourth, this local tourism project maximises the retained income, as most revenues generated actually trickle down through the community. Unlike high-end luxury tourism, which tends to be externally controlled and very import-intensive (Scheyvens, 1999), the limited scale and the very nature of this guiding venture explain why up to now control of the activity has remained in the hands of the local community association (DMG) and consequently almost the whole income has remained within the local area. Furthermore, tourism revenue retained in the local area is noticeable when compared with alternative sources of income (as explained above) and generates multiplier effects for other non-tourism local businesses. Indeed, results show that each guide is supporting an average of six dependants (column 13). Quantitatively, apart from the 16 guides who receive money from the association, the tourism DMG project delivers at least some socioeconomic benefits (albeit often limited) for 91 additional local people. In turn, this revenue handed out to local dependants is spent almost entirely in locally owned shops. Qualitatively, the guides' support to their families consists mainly of buying food, handing out cash, buying clothes and medicines, and paying for children's education. Interestingly, one guide's tourism income made it possible for example for him to supply his grandmother's and parents' basic needs at their nearby farm at !Gaus, with the result that the whole family could stay on their native land and did not need to migrate to the town to earn a living.

In total, the retained income remains significant at the local level. In this regard our findings are consistent with some other recent research on tourism impacts and leakages (Mitchell & Ashley, 2007; Sandbrook, 2010).

4.3 Capacity-building and empowerment for rural dwellers: CBTEs as a springboard for future opportunities?

Economic impacts via the distribution of revenues and spillovers in the local area are not the only benefits delivered by this CBTE. Indeed, since the inception of the venture, guides have been provided with a very significant number of training sessions and exposure programmes, which have significantly improved their skills and human capital. They have attended on average five training sessions (column 12), including the Basic Introduction to Tourism provided by NACOBTA and the Rock Arts and Field Guides' training by a specialised NGO (Save the Rhino Trust), a private tour operator (Wilderness Safaris) and an internationally renowned professor (Tilman Lenssen-Erz of the University of Cologne), and Guides' certificates have been awarded by the Namibian Academy for Tourism and Hospitality. In addition, some guides were even given the opportunity to attend a tourism trade fair (the ITB in Berlin) or an international conference (the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 in Johannesburg).

Individually, these training opportunities enable guides to improve their education and skills and empower them. Their new skills (archaeology, language, management, customer care, communication, environmental sciences, etc.) enable guides with an initial low level of education to improve the quality of their work and gain rewards and reputation (i.e. they are given more tips, and more tour operators ask them to guide clients to the Koenigstein peak). They meet with people from other parts of the world, learn from their culture and exchange views. On the job, their English language and communication skills improve dramatically. In this context, on the job learning and extensive training expand their networks and thus unlock new opportunities to find other jobs in tourism or other sectors, inside and outside the area. For instance, on the basis of skills acquired and motivation demonstrated in participating in the project, one of the guides was sent to a 3-month workshop in Tanzania on rock arts and archaeology, after which he was approached by the Museum of Namibia in Windhoek to fill a position there and also offered a job as a guide at Wilderness Safaris, the biggest safari and accommodation operator in Namibia and southern Africa.

Collectively, training and exposure programmes have helped build social capital within the group and strengthened the DMG association's managerial and institutional capacity. Further, extensive external support by donors (European Union, International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN]), NGOs (NACOBTA, World Wildlife Fund [WWF], Rural People's Institute for Social Empowerment) and private operators (Wilderness Safaris) has helped this community tourism project to reinforce its performance and upgrade its product.

However, despite all this evidence of the positive impacts of the DMG CBTE on the local economy, the situation has changed for the worse since 2005. Revenues have stagnated, project management has become less efficient and services have degenerated. Questions therefore remain about the socioeconomic sustainability of such a CBTE. This is analysed in further detail in the following section.

5. The sustainability question: CBTEs within the broader tourism sector

5.1 The difficult of mainstreaming of CBTEs in the tourism commodity chain

Since 2004/05, growth in the number of visitors and the total income generated for the DMG has been limited, with the result that the number of guides working on site and their salaries have remained unchanged. Although this situation could of course be partly explained by global and national tourism trends, this paper argues that it is mostly due to the marginal insertion of the DMG venture into the increasingly competitive global tourism chain.

Building on the GCC theoretical framework presented above, two elements explain that actual revenues to CBTEs, including the DMG association, remain limited when compared to other segments of the tourism sector. First, it has been shown elsewhere (Meyer, 2003; Berne Declaration & Arbeitskreis Tourismus & Entwicklung – Working Group on Tourism & Development [BD & AKTE], 2005) that international airlines and outbound tour operators control the bulk of tourist spending from source markets (Europe and the USA). For instance, in a similar context, of the total price paid by Swiss tourists to visit South Africa only 42 per cent is said to benefit the country, while on the other hand 25 per cent is retained by the Swiss tour operator and the rest is spent on flights and imported goods. Similarly in Namibia, evidence was given that holidaymakers spend most of their budget on services paid to foreign companies prior to arriving in Namibia (25 to 40 per cent), mainly on flights and tour operators' packages (Social Impact Assessment and Policy Analysis Corporation [SIAPAC], 2003; World Travel and Tourism Council [WTTC], 2006); which suggests that only a small share benefits the Namibian national economy, all the more so at the local level.

Second, poor access to the national market remains the greatest challenge for any CBTE's success at the local level (Mitchell & Muckosy, 2008; Goodwin, 2009). On the basis of survey instruments randomly administered to visitors to the Brandberg Mountain (n = 263), it was found that 26.2 per cent of tourists were on a guided tour, 38.4 per cent said the places they visited were at least partly chosen by their travel agent, and 50.2 per cent said they used a travel agent or a tour operator to book travel services to or within Namibia. This suggests that tour operators, both inbound and outbound, control most tourist flows within Namibia and consequently that the capacity of the community DMG venture to generate tourism revenues for the local area depends largely on the extent to which the association is able to build commercial links with tour operators and travel agents.

Unfortunately CBTEs, including the DMG, have failed to understand the organisation of the tourism sector (interview, W Schenck, member of executive committee of Hospitality Association of Namibia, Windhoek, August 2007). Advertising, through brochures, directories, newspapers and catalogues, has been poor, and none of the members of the association has ever gone to visit any tour operator to present the tourism attraction and build commercial networks with the operator (personal communication, K Schlenther, member of Tour and Safaris Association, Annual General Meeting of NACOBTA, Windhoek, June 2004). As a result, few travel agents include a visit to the Brandberg Mountain in their tour and few believe that the DMG association is reliable; interestingly this evidence is consistent with some other research at the regional level. Spenceley (2008:293–4), on the basis of an assessment of 218 CBTEs in 14 Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, notes that the most frequently cited limitations to CBTEs' sustainability were market access (71.6 per cent) and advertising (67.33 per cent).

In sum, this inability of small CBTEs to be included in mainstream distribution networks limits their potential to attract significant tourist numbers and generate revenues (Hitchins & Highstead, 2005). This in turn explains why guides' salaries have stagnated and thus why some form of discouragement has led to project mismanagement. This is analysed below.

5.2 The communities' insufficient managerial and institutional capacity

As has happened elsewhere in other ventures in Namibia and worldwide (Tosun, 2000; Murphy & Halstead, 2003; Li, 2006; Mitchell & Muckosy, 2008), collective governance of this community project has recently proven time consuming and cumbersome and has finally undermined incentives to work.

Despite some evidence of collective and individual empowerment within the project, stagnating revenues and discouragement have finally led to a dramatic decrease in the DMG's institutional capacity. Since 2004, the association has failed to continue organising itself. The elected committee has not met regularly, and DMG members have left for other job opportunities and later came back. Lately, conflicts have even broken out within the group. In 2004/05, money was mismanaged and stolen from the association and a member of the group was sent to jail for having threatened one of the others with a knife. Overall, the level of instability was high, and leadership and guidance for the community project were lacking.

To remedy this situation, institutional changes were eventually made with the help of influential local people (police officers, traditional authorities) and a project coordinator was appointed. Nevertheless, this had only very limited effects and as a result of the continuing lack of any credible organisation and control, guides' services worsened; for example, uniforms began to look the worse for wear, cases of alcohol consumption at work were reported, and so on. The poor quality of services (below industry standards) was increasingly criticised by individual tourists and tour operators coming to the Brandberg Mountain, making them reluctant to visit the site and inclined to choose other attractions in the area. In addition, many experts (such as archaeologists and tourism advisors) have begun to worry about the lack of any maintenance and planned conservation of the renowned White Lady paintings site.

In sum, these drawbacks have jeopardised the project's business viability and environmental sustainability – a finding again consistent with findings in other contexts in Namibia (Novelli & Gebhardt, 2007) and worldwide (Salafsky et al., 2001; Kiss, 2004).

Building on these observations and criticisms of the DMG community project, the state, through the National Heritage Council of Namibia (NHC), eventually decided in June 2005 to take full control of the tourism operation again. In practice this means that money received from tourists is now collected directly by NHC officers (cashiers) on its behalf. The NHC then redistributes 50 per cent of all monies collected at the site to the DMG, which is in charge of dividing this income among the guides. This paper argues that it was the DMG project's lack of institutional capacity and sustainability that led the state to modify the institutional arrangement and ‘re-nationalise’ tourism at the Brandberg Mountain. Since then, the venture can hardly even be called a pure CBTE.

5.3 Donors' and NGOs' inadequate support

Extensive support of CBTEs by NGOs since the mid 1990s, including support for the DMG, has unfortunately not succeeded in tackling challenges faced by communities within the tourism sector. Worse, NGOs, although well intentioned, have sometimes given communities unreasonable expectations, leading eventually to greater frustration.

First, NACOBTA and other donors have failed to help mainstream the DMG in the tourism sector at the national level. Yet NACOBTA and the European Union extensively funded marketing efforts to support the DMG venture: one DMG member was sent in 2002 to Frankfurt for the ITB trade fair and to Johannesburg for the World Summit on Sustainable Development; a CBT website was launched and the project's brochures were printed and distributed through Namibia Tourism Board agencies. Nonetheless, under financial constraint,2 these donors have recently focused instead on the quality of project infrastructure and minimised efforts to actively market CBTEs and build strong links with tour operators at the national level. For instance, NACOBTA has been forced to close its information and booking office in the well-frequented Windhoek craft market. Similarly, the website remains of low quality and lacks external visibility, and no reservation system has been put in place.

As a result, most private actors in the sector do not rate very high NACOBTA's capacity to understand power relations in the tourism industry and efficiently support community projects. As evidenced elsewhere, NACOBTA is criticised for a lack of business expertise and its inability to ‘produce material of sufficient quality to make its members competitive in the tourism market’ (Forstner, 2004:506). In the mid to long term, this inadequate donor and NGO marketing support partly explains why up to now the number of tourists visiting community tourism ventures remains quite marginal, in particular in the DMG case.

Second, assistance by field NGOs, including but not restricted to NACOBTA, to community projects' managerial capacity has been relatively inefficient and very costly, and the recent situation of the DMG association is no exception. Consistent with other pieces of evidence (Nicanor, 2001), this study's findings show that management support by NACOBTA to the DMG was inadequate. So-called ‘business advisors’, officially in charge of technical assistance to the project, were promoted or recruited from a conservation and/or social work background. Hence, most of these advisors act rather as community facilitators, simply solving conflicts at the local level, and are unable either to build the guides' capacity in accounting, business and leadership skills or to advise the association on how to deal commercially in the tourism industry. In practice, as noted elsewhere (Forstner, 2004:509; Simpson, 2008:11), these skills in the field of community tourism are hardly available within the NGOs' staff. Even recently, new support by the NHC (as explained above) did not improve the situation: new uniforms were not distributed, training sessions became rare, and the NHC regional coordinator now seldom visits the project. In this context, the continuing lack of industry knowledge as well as culture of business and profitability has affected the sustainability and quality of the DMG and other community tourism projects.

Third, these organisations, although well intentioned, can create frustration at the local level by raising unrealistic expectations over unsound community-based tourism ventures. Indeed, many CBTEs have been funded and implemented without sound marketing and prior financial analysis. As a result, benefits delivered locally by these projects have proven disappointing in comparison with the communities' high demand for rural development, and thus NGOs often have to keep supporting and subsidising the projects. In the end this inadvertently creates a culture of dependency within poor and impatient ‘beneficiary’ groups (Hitchins & Highstead, 2005:13; Spenceley, 2008:299) and undermines the communities' capacity to generate revenues.

6. Concluding remarks

Combining analyses based on global value chain and livelihood impacts at the local level, this article contributes to the existing body of literature on the actual contribution of CBTEs to rural poverty alleviation worldwide.

On the one hand, it recognises that the main decision-making power remains in the hands of the tour operator, who in fact captures most of the tourism revenue generated. In this regard, it shows that the potential socioeconomic impacts of CBT will remain limited unless the political economy of the tourism sector and power relations between actors within the chain are addressed at the global level. One possible solution was proposed and implemented, with the rapid development of certification schemes and labels that sought to reintroduce a fair distribution of income along the chain; however, these mechanisms were eventually found to be powerless to redress inequalities in the industry, and thus stakeholders are still to design innovative solutions.

On the other hand, on the basis of extensive and in-depth field work, this article supplies evidence that a community-based tourism enterprise, the Daureb Mountain Guides association in the Tsiseb Conservancy in Namibia, potentially contributes to local livelihoods and empowerment. Overall, tourism activity at the Brandberg Mountain has proven to be an efficient strategy for households to diversify their income, build assets (financial, physical and human capital) and enhance their resilience to unexpected negative shocks. In addition, it was shown that retained income generated at the local level proves significant when compared with alternative sources of income (pensions, crops and livestock farming). In this context, this article also demonstrated that the concept of leakages should be treated with much caution when applying it to the tourism sector and assessing the potential success of CBTEs worldwide.

Notes

¹The National Monuments Council has remained custodian of the site since independence in 1990. In 2006 it was renamed the National Heritage Council (NHC), but its prerogatives have remained the same.

²Interestingly, the reduction in donor funding to community-based tourism was partly based on the evident failure of such community tourism projects.