The key findings from the 4 case studies reveal that community-based tourism in Thailand generally emerged from both inside and outside factors, including economic difficulties, environmental degradation as well as government policy. The success of community-based tourism depends on various issues, such as the abundance of tourism resources, level of community participation, strong leadership, the strength of community organization, fair benefit distribution, effective natural resource management and sufficient outside support.
The result of this study also highlighted that community-based tourism, which has been perceived as a sustainable tourism, would create both advantages and disadvantages to local people in various aspects, including economic, environmental, social and cultural impacts.