Community-Based Tourism Experiences in Nepal: A Path to Sustainable Tourism in the Post-COVID-19 Era

Conceptualisation Of Community-Based Tourism

The earlier concept of community-based tourism (CBT) emerged in the 1970s when international donors such as the United Nations and the World Bank introduced the idea of a participatory development process (Zielinski, Jeong, Kim, et al., 2020). In line with this agenda, CBT was conceptualised as an alternative to mass tourism in developing countries and rural tourism in the developed world. It was expected that this initiative would help in grassroots development, resident participation, empowerment, and capacity building of rural communities (Dangi & Jamal, 2016). CBT was considered a viable instrument for poverty reduction for developing countries and would offer opportunities for conservation and rural economic development. Numerous community-development projects based on similar approaches were also started in developing nations, many of which were aided through official development assistance (ODA) (Zielinski, Jeong, Kim, et al., 2020).