Factors of community participation that explain the benefits of ecotourism

María Cristina Sosa; Ludger Brenner

doi:10.25145/j.pasos.2021.19.030

Authors

María Cristina Sosa Universidad Autónoma de Occidente, Unidad Mazatlán, México https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1352-4826
Ludger Brenner Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Unidad Iztapalapa. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1052-9007

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25145/j.pasos.2021.19.030

Keywords:

Ecotourism, Community tourism, Management, Community participation, Sustainability

Abstract

The sustainability of ecotourism initiatives represents a major challenge. The aim of this study is to enhance our understanding of how community participation in ecotourism management can contribute toward achieving more sustainable results by identifying key factors that make it possible to potentiate a broader range of economic, social and environmental objectives. Based on the theory of collaborative planning and the strategic focus of community tourism, our work adopted a mixed approach to compare and explain the differences between two local cooperatives on the coast of the state of Nayarit, Mexico. The results reveal statistically-significant differences between the benefits obtained through ecotourism and identify the factors that foment active community participation by local residents that, in turn, generates positive correlations with those benefits. Findings were supported by qualitative interviews with external informants. Our conclusion is that the level of benefits obtained can be reasonably explained by a set of six key factors.

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Author Biographies

María Cristina Sosa, Universidad Autónoma de Occidente, Unidad Mazatlán, México

María Cristina Sosa has a degree in Business Administration (2007) and master in Business Strategic Administration (2012) from the National University of Misiones (Argentina), and holds a PhD in Tourism Management from the West Autonomous University (Mexico). Her research interests center on models of organizational management, decision-making, sustainable tourism, and ecotourism.

Ludger Brenner, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Unidad Iztapalapa.

Ludger Brenner is full-time professor of the Department of Sociology at the Autonomous Metropolitan University based in Mexico City. He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Trier (Germany). His research interests include tourism geography, the environmental governance and management of protected areas. Dr. Brenner has directed numerous theses at the undergraduate and graduate levels and has been responsible for research projects sponsored by various Mexican and foreign institutions. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, books, and book chapters.

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