Economic sustainability guidelines for a Community-Based Tourism Project: The Case of Thabo Mofutsanyane, Free State Province

Abstract

Community - based tourism (CBT) is intended mainly for the underprivileged communities, and it is viewed as a form of tourism development that must be initiated, planned, owned, controlled and managed by the local community members towards the achieveme nt of their needs and wishes. CBT takes environmental, social and cultural sustainability into account, and it is imperat ive that community members, regardless whether they are directly involved or not in tourism endeavours, gain some form of benefit as well. The main objective of this article is to formulate guidelines towards improving the economic sustainability of commun ity - based tourism projects in the Thabo Mofutsanyana district of the Free State province. The primary goal of the study was to investigate the sustainability of financial investment in Community - based tourism projects in the Thabo Mofutsanyana municipality . The significant results that the study revealed indicate that some CBT projects failed mainly because of a lack of proper planning and ineffective financial management by the government. In some cases, the communities were excluded from the initial plan ning phases of projects, while training programmes to capacitate the community were also inadequate. The major challenge in the sustainability of CBT projects in the area was the provision of sufficient seed funding for the projects, hence the respondents believe that other donor agencies should be exploited to curb the f unding issue. The study provides guidelines on how to improve the economic sustainability of CBT projects – not only in the study area, but also in other similar type of areas .