This paper reports on the contribution of tourism to the wellbeing of rural residents through the development of economic linkages engaged by community-based tourism (CBT) in rural Costa Rica. In a qualitative case study of local economic linkages surrounding one such project in Chira Island, economic linkages were assessed at two levels: discourse and practice. The findings indicate that CBT does not involve the collective property of the community, but rather, the collective property of a group of community members organized in a formal association. As a result, a discourse on local economic linkages has been promoted by CBT support organizations in which hopes of wider benefits are placed on small linkages to services and products provided by local community members. However, a field survey suggested that the economic linkages generated by CBT in the community were sporadic and polyvalent and, furthermore, that the linkages with agriculture are negatively affected by scale and seasonality, resulting in leakages out of the community. These findings caution practitioners that CBT may only have small-scale positive impacts on the local economy.
A limited number of studies bave been conducted to better understand community resilience in the context of cbanging resource-dependent communities. This study is intended to start bridging tbis gap by empirically examining tbree key factors associated with community resilience: local ownership of resources, residents' organizational capacities, and local institutional capacity to respond to cbange. Our objective is to deepen the understanding of sucb factors by uncovering tbe processes behind tbem in tbe context of two cbanging resource-dependent communities in Costa Rica. Findings suggest tbat community resilience is bigbly dependent on equity of resource distribution and access to financial resources, tbe quality of relationsbips between residents wbo live in the community as well as witb newcomers, and tbe ability of local institutions to adapt in order to operate efficiently in tbe ligbt of cbange.
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