Planners will be able to use the model presented here to assess the status
of communities involved in tourism development and to determine initiatives
that will enhance CBT. The case study of the tourism development project in
Palawan demonstrated how to ascertain the current situation within the destination
community and with regard to relationships with stakeholders and
tourists. The model helped identify not only the present position of the principal
elements of CBT (i.e. community participation, power redistribution and
collaboration processes), but also further steps that the community and stakeholders
could embark on. A further analysis of social capital and its status lubricant for the three elements described above.
This paper argued that although community-based tourism has been frequently
advocated, there have been few directives on howthis might be achieved
in practice. It is proposed that, using the model presented here, the first step
in practical tourism planning should be to examine the current situation with
respect to community participation and then to indicate the initiatives that are
required to promote it. Stakeholders can use the model to improve their involvement
in tourism development in the community of concern. However, it
may not be possible, as some have argued, to standardise community-based
approaches to tourism development because processes and results in any particular
case are contingent on factors unique to that situation alone: differences
in background conditionswill result in different outcomes (Reed, 1997). Furthermore,
this model was only applied to an early stage of tourism development.
The applicability and utility of the model in more advanced stages of tourism
development and in different cultural contexts remain to be determined. Nevertheless,
the evidence indicates that this model can be used successfully to
provide signposts on the road to community-based tourism and to highlight the
processes and stages through which this can be achieved.