Case Studies 4 and 5: Community Based Tourism Associations in Namibia and Uganda (NACOBTA, UCOTA)
This case study covers two broadly similar organisations in Namibia and Uganda. The Namibia Community Based Tourism Association (NACOBTA) and the Uganda Community Tourism Association (UCOTA) are membership associations of community-based tourism initiatives.
NACOBTA and UCOTA aim to increase financial benefits to poor communities through the improvement and expansion of the niche, community-based, segment of the industry, and through wider integration of communities into the mainstream industry. Both organisations work simultaneously at three levels:
- Local - providing support in the form of training, finance, technical assistance and marketing to individual community-based tourism enterprises;
- Private sector - lobbying for private sector support and patronage of community-based enterprises and (NACOBTA only) facilitating the development of partnerships between the private sector and communities;
- Policy - lobbying and advocacy for policy reform that supports community based tourism, and providing a voice for marginalised groups.
It is perhaps at the micro-level that most progress has been made, with activities focusing around training, technical assistance and business advice, grants and loans for enterprise development or improved marketing and other business advice. Many initiatives are now well established and self-sufficient. However, it is noted, for NACOBTA particularly, that there is a limit to the organisation's capacity to deliver the level and amount of training required to an increasing number of enterprises.
Building links with the private sector is seen as a slow but critical process. Whereas NACOBTA faced great difficulties with this at first, lacking credibility with the private sector, considerable progress has been made in this area with a number of avenues of contact now established. The case study identifies the need for business skills and a thorough understanding of the workings of the industry and 'corporate culture' in order to gain credibility with the private sector, or to negotiate effectively. Policy level work is similarly slow, and it is difficult to separate impacts that have come about as a result of NACOBTA/UCOTA interventions directly rather than those that have been part of a wider process of policy development.
Although it is difficult to say what progress in community tourism in Namibia and Uganda has been caused specifically by NACOBTA or UCOTA - as opposed to wider policy influences - it is clear that the two provide a role that others do not, and a momentum for change.
The case study highlights:
- the value of membership organisations in providing a "voice for the poor" and in promoting PPT at all levels;
- the dependence of such organisations on external funding and the implications this has for their long-term sustainability.
- the
huge need for business skills including marketing, strategic planning
and general awareness of the tourism industry if member enterprises
are to become self-supporting and able to compete with the private sector.
Communication
