A world of potential

Ethiopian highlands: Community based holidays

Want a holiday with a difference? Caspar van Vark checks out some of the best community-based trips on offer

Many people have, at some point in their lives, been on the sort of holiday where a local dance is performed. You know the sort of thing – smiling people in traditional costume performing at an international hotel chain. Some tourists might even buy a souvenir from the shop in the lobby.

This is everything that community-based tourism is not. Increasingly, communities in developing countries are organising themselves to offer tourist experiences on their own terms.

Community-based holidays are often set up in partnership with a local or international charity, and typically includes homestays, treks and nature tours. Community-based tourism directly benefits the areas you visit. The money stays there, and that usually produces a greater good, with fragile ecosystems and traditional cultures being preserved.

In this article

Life in the rainforest

Amazonian Ecuador: community project
Amazonian Ecuador: community project

  • Where: Amazonian Ecuador
  • What: Visit indigenous Amazonian communities
  • Charity: RICANCIE
RICANCIE (Network of Indigenous Communities of the Upper Napo region for Intercultural Living and Ecotourism) was set up in 1993 to protect and support a network of ten Quichua communities living in Amazonian Ecuador. The ten communities are in the Grand Sumaco National Park Biosphere Reserve. They formed an alliance to protect their habitat from increasing levels of ill-considered tourism and mining.

The trips start from Tena, which is about six hours by bus from Quito. RICANCIE’s trips range from two to five days, so you won’t visit all ten villages on a short trip. You’ll get around by canoe and on hiking trails, and stay in visitor cabins just outside each of the villages. Village residents are on hand to offer guided tours, teach you about shamanism, and share other aspects of their heritage including dance, music, history and food.

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Sustainable trekking

Ethiopian highlands: trekking off the beaten track Photo: Mark Chapman
Ethiopian highlands: trekking off the beaten track Photo: Mark Chapman

  • Where: Ethiopia
  • What: Trekking in the Ethiopian highlands
  • Charity: Tourism in Ethiopia as a Sustainable Future Alternative (TESFA) /Save the Children UK
The Ethiopian highlands are well off the beaten track – this is a place where four-legged animals, rather than four-wheeled vehicles, are the way to get around. The trek is organised by TESFA and is funded by Save the Children.

TESFA has created a network of four sites in this region, where communities provide the infrastructure for trekking holidays and directly benefit from the proceeds.

Trekkers stay in traditional tukuls – round huts made of stone, with thatched roofs. The trips are arranged and advertised from TESFA’s base, but the trips themselves are managed by the communities. Villagers work as guides, and provide the accommodation, food and other services.

For visitors, accessing this part of Ethiopia is a unique experience; for the community, it’s a way of generating a livelihood on their own terms.

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Meet the people

Meet the people tours: fairtrade project

Photo: Richard Else

  • Where: Asia/Africa/South America
  • What: Visit fair trade projects in developing countries
  • Charity: Traidcraft
UK charity Traidcraft promotes approaches to trade that benefit poor people in developing countries. As part of its work, it offers 'Meet the People' tours, where you can meet the producers behind fair trade and visit development projects. It’s a way of humanising the 'fair trade' concept and seeing first-hand why fair trade matters.

These trips include visits to India, the Philippines, Thailand and Chile. One of the India tours, for example, focuses on tea. You can visit a variety of projects and producers, and hear from people about the issues facing the Indian tea industry. The trip includes a homestay and an introduction to Ayurvedic medicine.
 
"Although we visit beautiful places as tourists do, we visit as guests rather than as customers with rights," says Alison Atkinson, who has been on the tours. "We have opportunities to meet the 'ordinary' people who are fair trade producers, and visit places far off the tourist trail."

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Conservation in Central America

Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve: conservation in centrail america

Photo: Matt Humke

  • Where: Honduras
  • What: Explore World Heritage site and stay with indigenous communities
  • Charity: La Ruta Moskitia Ecotourism Alliance (LARUMO Alliance) supported by Rare Conservation
The Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve is on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. It's been a World Heritage site since 1980 and is made up of mountainous and rainforest terrain, home to at least 20,000 indigenous people.

The LARUMO Alliance, supported by global conservation charity Rare Conservation, is made up of six communities in the reserve who have developed an ecotourism project. It’s fully owned by the communities themselves, so all the money you spend there, stays there. Visitors travel by 'pipantes', which are small motorised dug-out canoes, and itineraries include wildlife spotting, hiking and cultural presentations.

Tourist revenue means the communities don't have to resort to slash and burn agriculture or cattle grazing, so the habitat of the reserve remains protected.
For more information: La Ruta Moskitia

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Wildlife protection

Northern Indian Mountains: snow leopard conservancy

Photo: John Yee

  • Where: India
  • What: Empowering communities to help protect the snow leopard
  • Charity: Snow Leopard Conservancy
In northern India, community-based tourism is being used to help protect an endangered species. The US-based organisation Snow Leopard Conservancy (SLC) trains and supports communities in the Ladakh district to cater for tourists by offering homestays and guided nature tours.

These services are made available to tourists going on treks with the charity through the mountainous terrain of Hemis National Park.

"Households are receiving the entire economic benefit instead of the pittance the men once received from renting their pack animals to foreign trekking groups," says Darla Hillard, education director at Snow Leopard Conservancy.

"One village has used part of their community fund to restrict grazing in several high pastures, to the benefit of wildlife. Another settlement started a livestock insurance program. Best of all, we’ve seen a notable shift in the communities' attitude towards the snow leopards, which they once saw as dangerous pests."

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