No abstract

Community based tourism (CBT) as a concept offers a multitude of opportunities and benefits; however, there are numerous challenges in achieving such positive outcomes in real world communities.While conducting the review of the literature, the term 'conflict' emerged as a concept that could be used to describe many of the challenges occurring within CBT and the term 'conflict management' was recognised as the process responsible for positive or negative outcomes during the CBT process. The research gap became evident through the realisation that conflict and conflict management had not been specifically studied within the CBT context.To address the research gap, the purpose of this study was developed: to explore conflict and its management during CBT initiatives. To initiate this process, a model of conflict management was developed after reviewing both the CBT and conflict management literature.As a result, an original contribution towards understanding conflict management was developed, which was presented as a linear model.The conceptualisation of the linear model involved an 'instance' of conflict occurring, followed by a 'response' to the conflict, which then initiated an 'impact' on the CBT project. To determine if this logic was appropriate, a systematic review of the CBT literature was then conducted to assess the context of these three CBT-related concepts. This review determined the linear model to be a logical progression and also distinguished which CBT related concepts were most frequently mentioned as being 'instances', 'responses', and 'impacts'.The five research objectives developed for this study were 1) to explore instances of conflict that occur within CBT initiatives; 2) to investigate the conflict management techniques used to respond to the identified conflict; 3) to explore how the response to the conflict impacted the CBT initiative; 4) to determine whether the proposed model of 'instances', 'responses', and 'impacts' provides an initial understanding of the 'conflict theme' components that can be identified when addressing conflict management during CBT; and 5) to consider how the investigation of 'instances', 'responses', and 'impacts' of conflict in CBT can inform future projects to increase the likelihood of success. Page | iiTwo stages of the exploratory research design were undertaken to attain qualitative data from CBT examples across the globe from representatives of four CBT stakeholder groups affiliated with CBT development: community, government, non-governmental organisations, and private enterprise. The first stage was an online survey, which investigated the conflict themes of 'instances', 'responses', and 'impacts' across the four stakeholder groups. The respondents were invited to participate in the second stage and the results were used to inform and develop the Stage 2 interview guide. During the Stage 2 interviews, the Constant Comparative Method (CCM) was used to acquire a dataset that constantly grew in detail and richness due to the evolution of the intervi...