Community tourism is a more responsible way of traveling, where the idea is to promote fairer tourism to destinations.
It is important to remember that community tourism is not a tourism segment, but a management model. The visits are carried out by the community, generating collective benefits, promoting intercultural experience, quality of life, valuing the history and culture of these populations, as well as the sustainable use for recreational and educational purposes of the resources of the locations where these communities are located. find.
UIKA develop and co-create experience tourism with tradicional populations and entrepreneurs of creative economy in Amazon to make the forest worth more as it stands. Click here to check it out.
How to identify itineraries of community tourism?
The UIKA team has compiled a list with the principles of community tourism, to help you identify destinations, itineraries and operators that work in a fair and responsible way in community-based tourism. This list is just the beginning of our initiative to speak democratically about community tourism. Let's get to topics?
1. Biodiversity conservation
Your itinerary needs to contribute so that biodiversity exists for future generations, with activities that respect the environment and protect wildlife. For this, it is necessary to manage the human use of nature, understanding the need for conservation, interpretation and maintenance of nature. In addition to joining efforts for the recovery of the natural environment, usually used during trails, camping, among others.
- Prefer to do wildlife observation activities rather than interaction and feeding of wildlife. Choosing to value and respect species in their natural habitats, as well as the region you are visiting and science that is concerned with keeping the population of these species off the endangered list.
Do you want to know more about the negative impacts that exist when feeding or interacting with animals when tourism? Access material resulting from research and interventions by the World Animal Protection.
- Choose accommodation and means of transport that reduce the emission of waste and pollutants into the environment. In the case of transport, you can share means of transport with other travelers such as vans, buses or subways, in addition to using racing apps.
As for accommodation, ask whoever is taking care of your reservation about how the inn or hotel adopts environmentally correct measures. But what is this? These are attitudes we take to take care of our environment and ensure it has a long life, such as correctly disposing of solid waste used in the hotel; or capturing rainwater to wash outdoors or water gardens; adopt renewable energy, such as solar, among others.
- Prefer to travel in small groups. The idea of traveling in large groups refers to massive tourism, which is much more concerned with a volume of travel in a short space of time, than the correct volume of travel to ensure an activity with controlled impacts.
According to journalist and editor Luisa Ferreira of the Janelas Abertas blog, "mass tourism causes environmental imbalances, cruelty to animals, commercialization of cultural manifestations, overload and deterioration of historical heritage, increase in rent prices, encouragement to work and sexual exploitation children, among other serious problems".
These were just some of the aspects that the UIKA team brought to reflection in relation to biodiversity conservation, there are many other aspects that we need to pay attention to before consuming. After all, consumption is moving in an increasingly responsible direction.
2. Community protagonism
Your hosts need to be local, meaning they were born and raised there. They are the ones who will develop the activities, make decisions and own businesses in the community or locality.
This factor, in our opinion, is the most important for Community Based Tourism. You know that saying that "change needs to come from the inside out"? So, that's what community protagonism is all about. It is not just a matter of giving voice and looking at traditional populations "as objects of consumption", on the contrary. It is about giving autonomy to the traditional populations involved in the process, providing the increase of social justice and quality of life, supporting local development, ensuring that the social, environmental and cultural impacts are closely monitored by the communities and partners who help them in the co-management of tourism activities and others that are alternative sources of income, promote dialogue and sociocultural exchange between travelers and communities.
Through community leadership, a local host can tell their stories, trivia and up-close their lifestyle through experiences for a traveler. The traveler takes home a new perspective on life, sometimes reinterpreting many aspects of his daily life. The local host, on the other hand, feels empowered, knowing that through the community tourism activity they carry out resistance work, making their territory and culture valued, in addition to contributing to the local development of their community.
3. Valuing history and culture
The experiences or activities of a Community-Based Tourism itinerary will highlight and strengthen the ways of creating, doing, living, eating, artistically and culturally manifesting themselves, including the landscape and natural assets that make up the local heritage.
"Community-based tourism must be able to trigger a process of recognition, dissemination and appreciation of the history and culture of local peoples and communities and, when necessary, involve and encourage these actors to share and deepen knowledge about aspects of their history and collective memory" (ICMBio, 2018).
History and culture make up our collective memory and identity, which are organized into two types of heritage, the material that refers to cultural activities that are seen, touched and exist in a physical material reality. These are clothing, museums, theaters, monuments, works of art, utensils, documents, spaces for artistic and cultural manifestations, urban complexes and sites of historical, scenic, artistic, archaeological, paleontological, ecological and scientific value and the immaterial that comprises everything that is part of a cultural formation, but it does not exist physically or it does not exist as a material reality present all the time. They are the forms of expression, the ways of creating, making and living, the cuisine, the rituals, the legends, the scientific, artistic and technological creations.
These were our 3 valuable tips to help you identify a community tourism itinerary or experience. This post is just the first of what we are going to do on the subject. Stay tuned!
Send this post to that friend of yours who likes unconventional experiences!
Sources:
Turismo de base comunitária: o que é e por que você deveria viajar assim do Janelas Abertas.
Caderno do TBC do GVCES.