Source: Yourtravelchoice.org

The wave of initiatives to incorporate local communities into the management of tourism operations hit a high point in the late 1990s, but subsequent reports of failing enterprises began to flow in, swamping any sense of progress. More and more community‐based tourism projects, designed to operate autonomously with initial donor investments, were virtually without guests and no longer operational by 2008‐2009. If one reads the excellent text,Responsible Tourism, edited by Dr. Anna Spenceley, there are numerous chapters dedicated to poor investment in community‐based ecotourism in southern Africa. These examples largely stem from misplaced international donor investments, where ecotourism isstillseen only as a community development exercise which can help preserve biological diversity without the necessary analysis of business prospects, markets and access to markets.

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