Making tourism help the poor and the environment

The Amadiba Horse and Hiking Trail is an ecotourism project in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. Started in 1998, the project is presented as an environmentally sensitive enterprise that involves local people in planning, management and decision-making. However, whilst this project has been a modest success, questions remain about the long-term economic sustainability of the project.

Research from the Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa Programme looks at the successes and failures of the project. The 23-kilometre trail was designed to enable the Amadiba people to provide tourists with an authentic African bush experience. The project presented an alternative to large-scale tourism developments run by investors, which have often been damaging to local livelihoods. A non-profit organisation was involved at the start of the project, and people from local communities have been central to the running and management of the trail.

The research describes how:

• Initial plans to accommodate tourists in the houses of local people did not work, due to reluctance on the part of community members.
• The trail has provided substantial benefits for members of the thirteen households working on it, such as increased income, but few benefits to others.
• Initial plans to pay a sum of five rand per tourist into a community trust fund were not achieved for several years.
• The scheme has enabled poor rural people to combine tourism work with farming and fishing.
• Local people require appropriate training, supervision, and reward structures to work in tourism.
• As income increased, the commitment to sharing the benefits amongst the community gave way to self-interest: some staff used visits by unregistered tourists to increase personal income.

While the product – an adventure experience that brings tourists into close contact with the Amadiba people – remains largely the same, the manner in which the enterprise is organised has changed. The scheme has become increasingly commercialised. The potential for local participation in higher-level decision-making has been reduced. Recent changes to the project have been a response to substantial European Union funding, rather than the concerns of the people involved in its operation, or the demands of tourists. The Amadiba Trail may turn out to be a mixed blessing to the development of tourism along the Wild Coast. Plans now focus on day trips from hotels rather than a long trail that requires close co-ordination between communities.

Key lessons from the Amadiba trail experience include:

• All stakeholders must be clear about project aims and organisation at each stage of the process.
• Private investors and donors may threaten the success of such schemes through excessively tight deadlines and unrealistic expectations of profits.
• While there is demand for ‘alternative’ tourism, operators must ensure that the service they offer is of consistent quality and meets customer expectations.
• Although much can be achieved through participatory organisation, it is not possible to operate without any professional management, administrative skills or specialist knowledge of the tourism market.
• Direct benefits to individuals, such as increased wages, are often preferable to indirect ‘community’ benefits.

With many people now look to the Amadiba trail as a success, there is a real danger that the values that made it such a rare example of a successful community-based tourism project may be overlooked in the drive for increased profits and tourism growth.

Source(s):
‘Community-based eco-tourism on the Wild Coast, South Africa: the case of the Amadiba Trail’, Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa Research Paper 7, Institute of Development Studies, Z. Ntshona and E. Lahiff, 2003 Full document.

Funded by: Department For International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 6th February 2005

Further Information:
Edward Lahiff
Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies
School of Government
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville 7535
Cape Town
South Africa

Tel: 27 21 959 3733
Fax: +27 21 959 3732
Contact the contributor: elahiff@uwc.ac.za

University of the Western Cape, South Africa

Oliver Burch
Sustainable Livelihoods in southern Africa
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Falmer, Brighton
BN1 9RE
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1273 606261
Fax: +44 (0)1273 621202
Contact the contributor: o.burch@ids.ac.uk

Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK

Other related links:
'A long trek. Can ecotourism work for Nepal?'

'Choosing a middleman - the role of intermediaries in community tourism'

'Building Tourism Excellence at the Community Level: Capacity Building for Community-Based Entrepreneurs in Uganda'

'Pro-poor tourism: benefit for locals and more fun for tourists?'

'Practical strategies for pro-poor tourism TROPIC Ecological Adventures - Ecuador' Retour foundation

"The International Ecotourism Society has searchable research papers with more information"

'Methodology for pro-poor tourism case studies', ELDIS