Rise and fall of community-based tourism – facilitators, inhibitors and outcomes

The aim of the current study is to use a city case study from Costa Rica to evaluate the Nash equilibrium point and Anna Karenina Principle in relation to community-based tourism (CBT), collaborative destination marketing (CDM) and strategic destination branding (SDB) – all of which require similar facilitators and suffer from similar inhibitors.

The study combines a case study approach with in-depth interviewing of local business stakeholders as the aim is to reveal a specific event in a specific setting.

In-depth interviews with local tourism product and service suppliers provided evidence that numerous deficiencies stem from the lack of collaborative destination marketing and branding in Costa Rica. This undermines the Nash equilibrium, namely successful CBT marketing and branding.

The results support the theory that the success (i.e. Nash equilibrium) or the failure situation (i.e. Anna Karenina Principle) in CBT – similar to CDM and SDB – depend on similar critical factors, including a shared vision, all-inclusive stakeholder involvement and participation; and cooperation and collaboration.

Results indicated an urgent need for governments, donor organizations, universities and NGOs to partner to collectively develop campaigns and educational and training programs for human and social capital development.

This study integrates sustainable tourism, tourism development, poverty alleviation, community-based tourism (CBT), collaborative destination marketing, strategic destination branding (SDB), Nash equilibrium and Anna Karenina Principle to explain the successful application of community-based tourism, which has not been previously reported.