Boosting Civic Capacity: Using Socially Oriented Business Models in Community-based Tourism

The potential of tourism to boost economic growth and social transformation is well researched and recognised by international organisations. Studies also show that the benefits derived from tourism are not spread equitably among local communities. As a result, there is growing doubt about tourism’s actual contribution to accelerating sustainable economic, political and social development, particularly for the least privileged. To address this problem alternative forms of tourism have been implemented, such as Community Based Tourism (CBT), albeit with mixed results. The literature records the business sector’s growing realisation that in order for companies to efficiently address sustainability challenges they need to develop new ways of creating, delivering, and capturing value. This paper seeks to contribute to the discourse on how to increase the impact of CBT. The author proposes using innovations from the Socially Oriented Business approach to design unique CBT models that address problems specific to a given locality.