APEC conference on Community Based Tourism

Tourism is a global industry and it’s without doubt that tourism brings lots of jobs and income to the people of the destination.

Community Based Tourism (CBT) is a new type of tourism that involves most of the locals of that community in tourism activities, all the tourism activities are arranged and managed by the community and the benefit is for the whole community not just for some of the families in that village or community.

Community-based tourism encourages local people to play a greater role in the management of their tourism activities, not managed by the outsider nor invested by the investors from other town or community.

Delegations from APEC member countries

APEC – Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation held this CBT conference in Sandakan, Malaysia, this conference held from 20 to 23 April (2009) were attended by representatives of member economies to discuss and share their knowledge and experience in tackling pertinent issues and challenges regarding community based tourism.

Son is speaking about CBT in Vietnam

Footprint was invited to be a speaker on this conference, to share our knowledge and experience in supporting community based tourism in Vietnam.

A draft version of the handbook on community based tourism was also presented at this conference. Feedback and suggestions from the participants will be incorporated in the handbook for it to be a useful guide for tourism managers and practitioners in implementing community based tourism in APEC member economies. At the end of the conference it is hoped that member economies will adopt community based tourism will be a mainstream development tool.

During the conference, we got the chance to visit the Miso Walai Homestay, this is a great model of the community based tourism in Sandakan, Malaysia where the locals are working together in their community to manage tourism and share benefit among the community members.

We also visited Sandakan on a post conference tour, we visited the Orangutan center and the tropical forests, and this is to say that Sandakan has a very good conservation of the tropic natures.

———-

Footprint Travel offers tours throughout Vietnam, please visit our Vietnam Tours page for more info.

Author: Footprint Team

Always full of travel spirit and laughter. Our expertises are shown not only through knowledge of the destination but also experience working in the tourism industry for over 15 years.