This Resource Kit for Community-based Tourism for Conservation and Development serves as a guide for planners and field-based staff to design, implement and manage Community-based Tourism. The Kit is NOT a detailed “how-to” manual but is a set of guidelines for field application.
The development of the Appreciative Participatory Planning and Action methodology is an on-going process. The four steps or phases in APPA are known as the “4Ds of Discovery, Dream, Design and Delivery. These phases constitute the sequential process of participatory Community-based Tourism planning that builds upon local or regional tourism assets to develop a collective vision and the plans, confidence and resources to achieve that vision – or Dream – and empowers communities with skills and plans to achieve it.
The Kit was originally developed to accompany international courses in Community-based Tourism for Conservation and Development given by The Mountain Institute (TMI) and Regional Community Forestry Training Center (RECOFTC).
The Appreciative Participatory Planning and Action (APPA) approach used in the Resource Kit has been developed by The Mountain Institute, building upon the ideas and field experiences of a number of TMI staff, NGOs and government partners, and communities in TMI project sites across the Himalayan region (in Nepal; Sikkim, India; and TAR, Peoples Republic of China).
