Integrating tourism to rural development and planning in the developing world

Abstract

In the past few decades, rural areas have experienced major socioeconomic changes. Due to modernisation and deepening globalisation, the economic and employment potential of many traditional livelihoods has decreased. Currently tourism is increasingly seen as a relevant tool for addressing rural problems in developing countries and tourism is actively used for economic diversification and opening up new ways to generate income and employment. However, many development models, such as integrated rural tourism (IRT) with emphasis on co-planning, learning and participation, originate from the Global North. This calls for careful considerations when such models are applied to the Global South's rural contexts. This research note discusses some of the key challenges of rural tourism development, especially related to the integration of the tourism industry and rural communities in developing countries, and overviews the applicability and conditions of the IRT framework as a potential approach for rural tourism development in the developing world.

Keywords:

• rural tourism
• integrative planning
• community participation
• rural development

1. Introduction

In the past few decades, rural areas have experienced major socioeconomic changes. Due to modernisation and deepening globalisation, the economic and employment potential of many traditional livelihoods has decreased. This has also triggered the process of rural–urban migration with the resultant demographic changes in rural populations. The transforming processes in rural areas have forced people but also national and regional planning and development agencies to find additional and new economic uses for rural environments and to establish specific diversification and development policies for these areas (see Cloke & Little, 1997; Ashley & Maxwell, 2001). In many places, tourism has been selected as a major economic activity to be promoted and developed, which has created a growing number of development initiatives and projects with high expectations concerning the growth potential of tourism and the contribution of tourism for rural communities (Hjalager, 1996; WTO, 1996; Hall & Jenkins, 1998).

The transformation of rural areas towards tourism and leisure-related servicescapes has been clearly evident in the western world, but recently tourism has also been increasingly seen as a relevant tool for addressing rural problems in developing countries (Odendaal & Schoeman, 1990; Binns & Nel, 2002; Rogerson, 2011, 2012a). As a result, tourism development in rural areas is now actively used for economic diversification and opening up new ways to generate income and employment in the developing world (see Mafunzwaini & Hugo, 2005; Telfer & Sharpley, 2007; Saarinen et al., 2009; Rogerson, 2012b). At the same time, the potential role of tourism has been elevated to a higher profile. According to Francesco Frangiolli, Secretary-General of the UN WTO, the development of tourism industry can play a major role in the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (UN WTO, 2006). The UN WTO has further emphasised that tourism development in Africa is particularly important in the fight against poverty. In addition, the World Bank (2012) has highlighted the transformative role that tourism can potentially play in the development of societies in sub-Saharan Africa (see Saarinen et al., 2013). All this has boosted tourism with a focus on the rural areas of the developing world with aims to meet the needs of the poorest: as Ashley & Maxwell (2001:395) have stated, ‘most poverty is rural’.

The emerging link between tourism and poverty alleviation is manifested in the idea of pro-poor tourism (PPT), which ‘simply’ aims to create net benefits for the poor in developing countries (Rogerson, 2006; Scheyvens, 2011). These benefits may go beyond the economic and include social, environmental and cultural issues (Ashley & Roe, 2002). Compared with various other community-based tourism models, the key point of the PPT approach is said to be located in ‘seeking to use mainstream tourism to achieve the objective of poverty elimination’ (Goodwin 2009:91). However, the PPT model has received harsh criticism questioning the capacity and motivation of private businesses to go beyond their legal obligations or self-organised industry-oriented benefit sharing models (see Hall, 2007; Scheyvens, 2009). In addition, tourism development in rural areas and poor communities often involves issues of inclusion and exclusion and inequalities and conflicts between different values, goals and land uses in development and among social actors (Paniagua & Moyano, 2007). Therefore, it is crucial to discuss how tourism is introduced to rural areas, and what kind of development and for whom it represents. Instead of problematising the development aspect per se, which is truly critical but too wide an issue for a single research note to cover, the focus of this paper is limited to the discussion of planning and development thinking in rural tourism initiatives. Many of these initiatives highlight the need to empower and participate rural populations and integrate tourism to rural development. However, the integration of local communities to tourism development in general, and especially in the developing countries contexts, is often a challenging process.

Recently, an integrated rural tourism (IRT) framework has been proposed to overcome the problems between rural populations, rurality and tourism (Saxena et al., 2007; Saxena & Ilbery, 2008). The framework's objective is holistic tourism planning through the integration of tourism as a new activity for localities. At a principle level, the IRT does not differ greatly from many other planning frameworks aiming to integrate different stakeholders with tourism in rural areas (see Jamal & Getz, 1995; Marcouiller, 1997; Reid et al., 2004). In addition, the IRT overlaps with the idea of sustainable tourism and community participation models in tourism (see Murphy, 1985). It places a strong emphasis on endogenous development, however, which makes it a ‘highly contextual’ issue (Saxena et al., 2007:363). Therefore, as IRT has been developed in the European Union agricultural policy context, its applicability to rural areas in developing countries needs careful consideration. Thus, the purpose of this research note is to discuss some of the key challenges of rural tourism planning and development, especially related to the integration of the tourism industry and rural communities, and overview the applicability of the IRT framework as a potential approach for rural tourism development in the developing world.

2. Rural transformation and tourism: Need for better integration

Rural tourism is a problematic concept. In general, it can be seen as a replacement activity for threatened and possibly disappearing traditional rural economies or as an additional activity to be used for the diversification of rural economies and sustaining rural communities and ways of living (Lane, 1994; Butler & Hall, 1998). From planning and regional development perspectives, these two approaches can have different impacts for rural environments and may result in very different kinds of rural landscapes and ways of living in future (Saarinen, 2007). Tourism as a replacement activity is often based on relatively strong tourism-centred perspectives aiming for growth in tourism (see Burns, 1999), with indicators reflecting mainly or only the development aspects of the tourism industry. This is in contrast with rural tourism as a tool for diversification, which emphasises goals and values that may not be directly linked to tourism but are related to rural environments and communities and their well-being. From this perspective, the development of the tourism industry is understood as a potential route to wider rural development.

Instead of conceptualising rural tourism as a sectorial idea (a tourism-centric approach) within the tourism industry and referring to tourism operations and activities simply taking place in rural environments, rural tourism is seen here as an ideological and development-oriented concept, which can be operationalised by utilising the IRT framework. Obviously, the sectorial approach to rural tourism is ideologically loaded as well; for example, reflecting neoliberalism and other socioeconomic or political views aiming to use rural areas in tourism for the growth needs of the industry.

According to Saxena et al. (2007), the argument behind the promotion of IRT is the much-needed realisation in rural development policies that, instead of safeguarding or aiming to keep rural areas as spaces solely for traditional economies (e.g. agricultural production), they should be encouraged to incorporate other uses and activities that would maintain or even increase their sources of income in future (see Ashley & Maxwell, 2001). However, they also emphasise that this should be processed without predestined intention to fully replace traditional livelihoods. Oliver & Jenkins (2003) further posit that the IRT concept aims to capture the type of tourism that elevates links with economic, social, cultural, natural and human resources in the localities where rural tourism activities take place.

IRT seeks to empower local communities for the benefit of the wider rural economy through a type of tourism that suits the people and observes high standards of environmental, economic and sociocultural sustainability (Saxena & Ilbery, 2008). Particularly in the context of developing countries, the value of empowering rural communities through tourism cannot be overemphasised (Schveyens, 2002), as it connotes the actual manifestation of local control over the resources and activities in the local environment (Agrawal & Gibson, 1999; Oliver & Jenkins, 2003). However, the empowerment is not only economic but also political, through the decision-making processes. Thus, IRT aims to represent an approach that recognises and appreciates the complexity and multi-faceted nature of rural areas, communities and their development needs (Cawley & Gilmor, 2007). These stretching goals are formulated through seven different dimensions aiming to serve IRT development and planning (Saxena et al., 2007): networking; scale; endogeneity; sustainability; embeddedness; complementarity; and empowerment (Table 1).

Table 1: Dimensions and core element of the IRT model

Dimension	Description: core ideas
Networking	The ability of people, businesses and agencies on the local scale and beyond to work together to plan, develop and manage tourism in rural settings
Scale	The extent of tourism in a rural area in terms of its distribution over time and geographically (bearing in mind any thresholds related to the area's carrying capacity)
Endogeneity	The degree to which the area's tourism is recognised as being based on the real resources of the area
Sustainability	The extent to which tourism does not damage, but possibly enhances, the environmental and ecological resources of the area
Embeddedness	The role tourism plays in the politics, livelihoods, culture and way of life of the whole area and population as a local priority
Complementarity	The degree to which tourism provides resources or facilities that benefit those who live locally in the rural area (even if not directly involved in the tourism industry)
Empowerment	The extent of political control over the tourism industry through full or joint ownership, law or planning; particularly control exercised at a local scale

Source: Clark & Chabrel (2007).

In short, networking involves the ability of people, firms and agencies in the local–global nexus to work together to develop and manage tourism. According to Saxena & Ilbery (2008:236), networks at the local scale and beyond enable actors (stakeholders) ‘to search for, obtain and share resources, [and] engage in cooperative actions for mutual benefit’. Scale represents the level of tourism in a given space in terms of its distribution (over time and space). Endogeneity indicates the degree to which the area's tourism is recognised as being based on the inherent resources of the area. The resources involve not only natural or physical elements but also knowledge, abilities and capabilities of the local community in particular (Saxena et al., 2007). The dimension of sustainability reflects the limits to growth in tourism (see Saarinen, 2006); the extent to which tourism does not damage the environmental, sociocultural and economic resources of the area. Embeddedness connotes the development of a sense of identity within a social, cultural, economic and geographic setting by providing parameters for defining ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ (Saxena et al., 2007). Complementarity is a crucial dimension in IRT, as it indicates the degree to which tourism provides resources, facilities and other such elements that benefit those who live in the area, whether they are involved in the tourism industry or not (Clark & Chabrel, 2007). Complimentary can also work between tourism and different local economies or within the tourism industry and its different forms. Finally, empowerment reflects the extent of local political control over the tourism industry and its operations through ownership (full or joint), legal agreements and/or planning processes (e.g. participation).

By involving all these seven dimensions of the IRT framework, it is expected that the existing or evolving tourism activities can be integrated into local rural settings without compromising the rural characteristics of the environment, communities and ways of living. Thus, the aim of the IRT framework is to centralise the role of local actors and communities in rural transformations by highlighting the local needs, benefits and control in rural development. However, there are major issues in problematising the possibilities of local communities to integrate tourism into their operations in developing countries. These challenges relate to the intrinsic nature of the tourism industry and constraints in participation.

3. Challenges in community-tourism integration in rural areas

Tourism is a large and increasingly global-scale industry that, however, is deeply attached to certain spaces providing opportunities for touristic production and consumption. Getz (1999:24) has defined tourism space as ‘an area dominated by tourist activities or one that is organized for meeting the needs of visitors’. While this kind of definition is economically logical from the industry's point of view, it potentially challenges the basic notions of community-based tourism, PPT or IRT models, emphasising the key role of communities and local people in rural tourism development and planning (Jamal & Getz, 1999; Giampiccoli & Kalis, 2012).

Obviously, serving the needs of non-local actors first does not automatically conflict with the local-scale needs and processes of empowerment in rural areas, but as Ringer (1998:9) has stated, tourism is an industry ‘that satisfies the commercial imperatives of an international business, yet rarely addresses local development needs’. Indeed, highly internationalised tourism spaces often represent enclavic (exclusive) spaces with serious problems of economic leakages; for example, in the high-end safariscapes of northern Botswana dominated by foreign ownership and/or management structures of the tourism industry, the leakage of tourism revenue is estimated to be well over 70% (see Mbaiwa, 2005; Lepper & Goebel, 2010). Similarly Lapeyre (2011) has pointed out in a Namibian Communal Conservancy context that while tourism can contribute to community well-being, the benefits from the industry may often depend on the existing personal relations on the ground (see also Lapeyre, 2010). This may create imbalances (i.e. beneficial inclusions and exclusions) inside the communities. In their study in Chitwan National Park (Nepal), Nyaupane & Poudel (2011) noted that the positive linkages among tourism and livelihood improvement (and nature conservation) were dependent on the stage of tourism development. This indicates that introducing tourism as a tool for local development and well-being for rural areas and communities often takes time, which may cause frustrations among stakeholders, especially in communities. Thus, tourism development does not easily translate into quick benefits for the local communities in a wider sense, especially in the contexts of developing countries, and may have difficulties in reaching the poorest members of communities. This dilemma is a major challenge for the advocates of PPT, for example, aiming to work directly with global mainstream tourism operations with an emphasis on poverty elimination. As Scheyvens (2009:93) has critically questioned: why should we assume that the mainstream tourism industry has some ethical commitment to ensuring that their businesses contribute to the poverty alleviation?

As there are no such guarantees for long-term ethical commitments in global-scale tourism industry, active local participation mechanisms are often called for (Okazaki, 2008). However, participation studies on rural development in the developing world have shown that there are major structural, operations and cultural limitations to community participation between developed and developing countries (see Connell, 1997; Tosun, 2000; Scheyvens, 2002; Thakadu, 2005; Lapeyre, 2010, 2011; Giampiccoli & Kalis, 2012). This is widely acknowledged but there are quite a few rural tourism development cases implementing the critical issue of contextuality. While the IRT framework seems to work in rural areas in Europe without specific brokers or awareness campaigns, for example, it may not automatically have similar operational grounds for engaging and empowering people in developing countries. Therefore, supporting ‘institutional’ structures empowering communities in tourism development may be needed. However, instead of creating new institutional arrangements, what could engage and empower communities as partners and subjects in rural tourism initiatives in developing countries is the utilisation of existing supporting structures of rural development and natural resource management processes – such as community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), which is called as an established policy goal of rural development by Blaikie (2006).

Although CBNRM programmes are not problem free (see Brockington, 2004; Swatuk, 2005; Musumali et al., 2007), they are based on the devolution of power aimed at involving local communities in natural resource management, by stating that local communities must have direct control over the uses and benefits of local resources (Agrawal & Gibson, 1999; see Ostrom, 1990; Agrawal, 2001; Jones & Murphree, 2004). Many researchers have questioned the effectiveness of people-centred approaches in natural resource management (see Oates, 1999; Locke & Dearden, 2005), but, by institutionally securing the control and benefits, local people are also assumed to value and manage natural resources in a sustainable way (Ostrom, 1990; Blaikie, 2006; Mbaiwa et al., 2011). Thus, a combination of IRT and CBNRM or other similar models and programmes can offer a supporting institutional arrangement for communities to manage not only natural resources, such as wildlife and natural heritage, but also rural tourism resources and activities in their living environment. Based on his field research in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, for example, Mbaiwa (2008) has concluded that during the past decades tourism development through CBNRM has been a viable tool to achieve improved livelihoods and conservation (see Mbaiwa & Stronza, 2010). Similarly, Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE Programme with a relatively strong tourism development element has been previously evaluated successful in providing substantial benefits for communities and nature conservation goals (Child et al., 2003; see also Hulme & Murphree, 2001; Frost & Bond, 2008).

However, in order to avoid past and many current problems with the CBNRM programmes and projects in developing countries, there is a need to have realism involved, because not all communities and their environments possess the sufficient attractiveness (or access) for tourism. Therefore, possible ultimate conservation goals in CBNRM projects should not be ‘wrapped’ behind unrealistic promises of financial benefits from tourism growth (see Blaikie, 2006). There also needs to be available financial support, training and educational programmes to make rural communities active and equal partners in the global tourism supply chain (see Tosun, 2000; Saarinen, 2010). In addition, although local views to natural resource management or rural tourism development may ‘not be unified or fool proof’ (Mbaiwa et al., 2011:408), the community perspectives should truly be incorporated into management structures with understandings of communities and their resource uses and preferences. That would also strengthen people's skills at negotiating uses and control over resources with rural tourism development (see Frost & Bond, 2008).

4. Conclusion

Tourism can represent a viable tool for rural development but, as noted also by the World Bank (2012:7), tourism ‘comes with its own set of risks and challenges’. This can potentially challenge the developmental role of tourism and some of the current collaborative/partnership ideas based on the self-regulative models of the tourism industry. Thus, a main argument of this research note is that instead of leaving rural communities to integrate themselves directly with the (mainstream) tourism industry by relying on philanthropy, pro-poor tourism and corporate social responsibility programmes, for example, the utilisation of existing supporting governmental or other similar structures would provide not only ethical but also legal and economic frameworks for the communities to control and benefit from the introduced rural tourism activities and the linked promise of development (see Massyn, 2007; Lepper & Goebel, 2010). From that perspective, tourism would be seen as a tool for rural community development in which the IRT approach can provide a useful framework for implementing the elements recognising the need for sustainability, but also the complex nature of rural areas, communities and their needs in the current pressures of globalisation. The IRT framework, by emphasising the core elements of networking, scale, endogeneity, sustainability, embeddedness, complementarity and empowerment, could aid in the understanding of the different dimensions and contexts constituting tourism for development among specific rural communities.

However, so far the IRT framework has been developed and mainly utilised in the European context. In this respect, the framework is still a theoretical option for developing countries, and thus needs further studies with practical planning cases to become a realistic option for rural (tourism) development in the developing world. By developing and utilising the existing IRT framework, however, the numerous evolving rural tourism initiatives and programmes could potentially represent a value-based policy and planning tool, depending on the intrinsic characteristics of the rurality aimed at benefiting local communities and their well-being, and maintaining rural values and ways of living not only in Europe but also in the developing world.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments. The research is part of the RELATE Centre of Excellence programme funded by the Academy of Finland.