Applying Sustainable Tourism Indicators to Community-Based Ecotourism Ventures in Southern Africa

Tourism has been proposed as the panacea for many of the problems of the developing world and has been seen as a potential solution to ensure the long-term protection of natural resources and as a means of satisfying the needs of the poor communities in close proximity to protected areas. Community-based ecotourism (CBE), a very specific form of tourism, focuses on initiatives that are not only environmentally sensitive, but aim to give community members a high degree of control over tourism and ensure that a significant portion of benefits accrue to them. Many CBE ventures have been plagued by many challenges in the past and have been unsustainable and as a result ceased to operation. This study applies a framework of sustainability indicators to a number of CBE ventures across southern Africa, in an attempt to ascertain areas of concern and potential threats to the long-term sustainability of these operations