In order for the initiative to harness community members’ participation and reflect their opinions, it needs to start at the grassroots or village’s level by forming a “task force” consisting of key local ‘champions’. Instead of a meeting at the high level (with local authorities and PA management boards and only a few representatives from the villages), small workshops at the local level were organised to facilitate the visioning of tourism at the early stage. Once the community has a clear vision of how they want tourism to look within their village, they would have a direction to move forward. With this approach, having a Tourism Task Force at the community level is crucial to continue the sustainability and the momentum built during the project to enhance nature conservation and promote local well-being through tourism.
Through the workshops, the following points have been discussed and determined:
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Mobilising resource persons (key ‘champions’) in each village involving in the tourism development in each PA
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Identifying a representative / coordinator of the Task Force
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Clarifying the expected roles and responsibilities of the Tourism Task Force
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Identifying the action plan with key actions to carry out for 2023
The participatory approach encourages local members’ participation but it can also demotivate them in case there is one strong negative feedback. In this exercise, two workshops were organised, only one was considered successful. It was observed that during the ‘unsuccessful’ workshop, the voice of one Village Head was very strong, making other members hesitant with the initiative although they seemed supportive in the beginning. At the community where the successful workshop took place, people have the same level of understanding about tourism and are bonding over the joint benefits of their community.