Recommendations for Kazbegi

To finish, there are some recommendations for our Kazbegi project.

If Kazbegi is to be a real CBT project, it will be important to take into consideration the involvement of the local community and the protection of the environmental resources.

First, it’s important to know who decided the Kazbegi tourism project. This question is important because in CBT, the locals must be involved in all parts of the project in order to benefit from it.

The second question is about the Kazbegi locals. It’s important to study the community in order to understand what kind of people live there. This study will determine how to communicate with them.  A feasibility study on cooperation with the community will be necessary in order to see if they wish to accept tourists and if infrastructures already exist. It could be interesting to prepare a list indicating who wants to participate in this project to determine all the local skills.

The third question concerns the redistribution of the benefits. If the local community has not initiated this project, how will the benefits be redistributed among them and how will this help in terms of local economy?

Now, the last question concerns the environment. Kazbegi has been a natural reserve since 1979 and the place is known for its beautiful mountain and trekking opportunities. So CBT must preserve natural resources with a study about the carrying capacity of the area, in order to preserve the environment against negative mass tourism impacts.

Limits

Generally there are true economic benefits for local people with community based tourism. But it’s also important to keep in mind the limits of this new kind of tourism. It’s clear that it has been set up also to match with a new demand for more authentic involvement from Westerners while they are travelling. Some Tour Operators have taken advantage of this to reach a new market target.

Another consequence in some local communities, is that tourists are seen as a model so that their values can overcome the values of  the local people. They can be more interested in money for example, rather than welcoming tourists in an authentic way. Sometimes they may seem not really involved in setting up the projects nor  in understanding them. And finally, it can also create competition and hierarchy inside the community, like in Kotchar community (Kirghizstan) for example.

The APPA (Appreciative Participatory Planning Action) method

The APPA (Appreciative Participatory Planning Action) method is a way to implement Community-Based Tourism.

It was created by The Mountain Institute (a non-profit organization specialized in the conservation of mountains), NGOs and government partners.

The philosophy of the method is based on what is called the “Appreciative Inquiry”: focusing on everything that is positive such as skills, strengths, motivations, and also on the “Participatory Planning Action”: making sure the community is actively involved in every stage of the process, so that it increases the empowerment of the community.

The APPA method is applied in 4 steps, also known as the 4Ds: Discover, Dream, Design, Delivery. In the Discovery stage, a market analysis will be done in order to identify and gather all the assets. The Dream step will be the opportunity to imagine the best CBT possible. In the Design stage, viable products and activities will be created. And finally, in the Delivery stage, the project will be carried out while ensuring personal commitment and ongoing evaluation.

Definition & Principles

Let’s focus on the definition and principles of a CBT.

In 1997, the REST (Responsible Ecological Social Tours), based in Thaïland, made their Community-Based Tourism Handbook which specifies that “CBT is tourism that takes environnemental, social and cultural sustainability into account. It is managed and owned by the community, for the community, with the purpose of enabling visitors to inscrease their awareness and learn about the community”.

The ideas evoked in this definition build the main principles of a CBT. These principles can be summarized by promoting community ownership, preserving the culture of local people and distributing benefits among community members.

The key elements to realize these principles are : a sustainable use of natural and cultural ressources, to build the community organization around the feeling of people that belong to their community, the management made by rules and regulations in order to link tourism and community development, and the last element is focused on learning which is the exchange between hosts and guests who learn from each other.

A globalized world : the United Nations context

How does Community-Based Tourism fit with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals ?

From 6 to 8 September 2000, all member States of the United Nations gathered in New York during the Millennium Summit and adopted a global agenda to encourage equitable and sustainable development.

The outcome of this meeting was the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Millennium Declaration which stresses certain fundamental values as being essential to international relations in the twenty-first century including freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance and non violence, respect for nature and shared responsibility.

In accordance with these values, key objectives with measurable indicators were defined and called the eight Millennium Development Goals (or UN MDGs), to be achieved by 2015 : eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, build a global partnership for development.

Community-Based Tourism interrelates with these key objectives as it can reduce poverty (benefits are shared within the community), empower women (training and creation of employment), contribute to the protection of local resources and environment as well as to social and economic development.

Community Based-Tourism is therefore a very important and promising tool at local level to promote the values contained in the Millennium Declaration and to achieve sustainable development.

Links to Georgia

Here are some websites talking about Georgia and Kazbegi.

A Marathon also took place in 2012 in Kazbegi Mountains, enjoy the view!

Kazbegi website

Visit georgia