Yurt Invited: Combining Tourists and Stakeholders Perceptions of Sustainable Community-Based Tourism in Central Asia

Abstract

Community-based tourism represents an opportunity for sustainable socioeconomic development, helping local populations to emerge out of lower living conditions. This paper investigates the perceptions of tourists and stakeholders engaged in Community-Based Tourism (CBT) in Central Asian countries (including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan) as an opportunity for sustainable development. This study’s purpose is to point out the usefulness of a combination approach of stakeholders’ and tourists’ perceptions to address the opportunities of CBT that can improve the quality of life of the tourism community in Central Asia by identifying the pitfalls of practices and determining challenges for tourism policy. Using a mixed-method approach, two complementary methodologies are simultaneously conducted. (1) An in-depth interview approach with sixteen selected experts in the region was processed with semantic network analysis for the definition of the main challenges and opportunities facing CBT as an enabler of sustainable development, considering the perceptions of sustainability from the point of view of stakeholders. (2) An online survey involving one hundred twenty-five tourists to the region was carried out to focus on tourists’ perceptions of sustainability. A structural equation modelling technique was used to identify the influence of tourists’ sustainability preferences and their involvement with local communities on sustainability perceptions. The results highlight the benefits the community receives, as well as future opportunities to obtain more advantages from tourism practices within the scope of sustainable tourism planning.