Engaging residents in planning for sustainable rural-nature tourism in post-communist Poland

Abstract

This study attempts to draw attention to environmentally, socially and economically sustainable tourism development as a tool with the potential to generate social capital based on development of local ties in Poland. It uses the interactional approach to community to discuss the possibility of enhancing actors' efficacy and the building of trust among the actors influenced by participatory planning for sustainable tourism development. The interactional approach to community allows for the observation of how the realization of such inclusive planning processes can help in pursuing interactions and therefore developing local relationships. Because of interactions a community is capable of pursuing joint action toward the wellbeing of a locality. Consequently the function of such processes is not limited to pure and effective planning for development, which is its explicit and conscious purpose. The task of the paper is to expose possible latent effects occurring within the tourism development framework.

Keywords:

• participatory tourism planning
• stakeholders' interaction
• interactional community
• relationships' development