Community perception on the development of rural community-based tourism amid social tensions: A Colombian case

ABSTRACT This paper aims to analyze the community’s perception and capacity for collective action around the development of rural community-based tourism (RCBT) in the context of mass tourism, modern agriculture practices, and low levels of trust in local governments, in the Ricaurte Province in Boyacá, Colombia. An exploratory analysis was done by interviewing different stakeholders, which was followed by a quantitative survey administered to different types of local actors in the tourism value chain. This mixed-method approach enabled the collection of community perceptions on the subject, as well as an understanding of their level of social capital and its connection with participation in RCBT. One of the main results was that communities perceive RCBT as an alternative development activity. However, certain challenges, such as apathy among the community toward governments and strengthening social capital, are also recognized.


Introduction
Mass tourism consists of the movement of large numbers of people for recreational purposes, usually through the use of standardized package products (Naumov & Green, 2016).Its growth worldwide has been accompanied by negative environmental and sociocultural impacts (Álvarez García et al., 2018).As part of this boom in tourism, and as a way to offset these impacts, rural community-based tourism (RCBT) has gained prominence as an alternative to conventional tourism (Raftopoulos, 2020;Salazar, 2012).
There is not a clear definition of RCBT, but we can define it bearing in mind the concepts of rural tourism and community-based tourism.On the one hand, Rosalina et al. (2021) point out that besides location, rural tourism is featured by other aspects such as sustainable development, the role of local communities, and the provision of rural experiences.On the other hand, community-based tourism fulfills the participation of communities in the supply of tourism under formal or informal management structures

Study site
We focus our analysis on the Alto Ricaurte Province, taking as unit of observation stakeholders of the rural tourism supply chain in this province, as described below.Geographically, the Alto Ricaurte Province is located in the western area of the department of Boyacá, Colombia.The site encompasses seven municipalities with a strong agricultural and manufacturing tradition: Gachantivá, Ráquira, Sáchica, Santa Sofía, Sutamarchán, Tinjacá, and Villa de Leyva (see Figures 1 and 2).According to the 2018 population census, the province has 40.684 inhabitants, increasing by 22% since 2000, driven mainly by growth in urban areas (see Figure 3).With about 58% of the population living in rural areas, less than 1% of total inhabitants self-recognize as belonging to an ethnic group.
The province has natural resources typical of a dry high Andean landscape, with an area characterized by paramo ecosystems, and with a diverse landscape formation, of which agricultural activity is part.In addition, in the area, there is a group of towns characterized as being heritage destinations.It was not only a place of development for pre-Hispanic communities; during the colonization, it used to be a place for settlements of encomenderos and large haciendas.Colonial architecture is particularly present in the central squares of these towns, some of them with particular churches formerly used to  From the social viewpoint, within the communities of Alto Ricaurte, different types of tensions become a factor of dissonance for the organizational processes.One of them is related to the political relationship between local governments and communities, which, as shown later, explains the dystopia and difficulty of community organization.Another type of discordance is related to the pressure on natural resources such as water and the arrival of mining activities in the area.These are some of the factors that could dilute community ties and become elements of division between people from the same community.
In sum, the province has remarkable natural and cultural attributes, and about twothirds of the population is in rural areas.However, changing social and economic dynamics have led to different types of tensions within the communities of this region.The combination of these contrasting features makes this site an interesting case to study, features that, to some extent, can be present in other parts of Colombia and other developing countries.

Materials and methods
Under an exploratory sequential design (Creswell & Plano, 2017), we began by collecting and analyzing qualitative data.Between December 2019 and January 2020, 25 semistructured in-depth interviews were conducted with local government officials (n = 8), rural tourism operators (n = 6), farmer leaders (n = 5), and representatives of community action boards (JAC, for its acronym in Spanish) and producer associations (n = 6). 1 Table 1 shows the number of interviewees by municipality.
The questions asked in these interviews included: features, strengths, problems, weaknesses, and opportunities of tourism, RCBT, and the rural sector in general, in the municipality/province; issues regarding land use planning and planning of the tourism development in the study site; forms and features of local social organizations, and; perceptions about cultural issues in the municipality/province.The purpose of these questions was to gain an overview of the social dynamics that exist, with an emphasis on the description of collective action, the difficulties different organizations face in their daily activities, how rural tourism operates, and to learn about some of their traditions.
In the analysis of qualitative data, we followed Braun andClarke (2006, 2013).The answers to these questions were recorded by audiotaping, and besides that, we took notes during each interview.The audio recordings were transcribed verbatim by the researchers, highlighting the parts of the answers considered suitable for the analysis.Based on this data and authors' knowledge of the problem, we used inductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to identify themes and patterns that allowed us to answer the research question posed in the Introduction section.We did this process in two phases.First, the second author made an initial coding by identifying keywords and key phrases, to look for themes and patterns across the entire transcriptions.These codes were classified into a first list of themes and their features, supported by quotations extracted from the transcriptions.Afterward, the first author reviewed, named and summarized these findings into the three main themes presented in the Results.The quotes in that section were translated by us from the original records, correcting by grammar and syntax.
The qualitative analysis was followed by a quantitative phase in which we developed a short survey that was applied to a convenience sample.For this analysis, we consulted secondary information sources, namely, archives of local governments, as well as of other organizations in the study site.These sources of information were used to build an inventory.Based on this inventory, we highlight the presence of two types of organizations: 85 community action boards and 79 solidarity economy organizations.These and other types of organizations are indicative of the social capital that exists there (see Table 2).The aim of analyzing social capital is to know how well-connected individuals or groups are in order to pursue their desired outcomes (Agnitsch et al., 2006).
A convenience sample was selected from this inventory to survey different individuals responsible for different aspects of the RCBT process, between October and December 2020 (see Table 2).The authors designed the questionnaire using Google forms, and administered it in person using a smartphone.In the cases demanded by the participants, the survey was completed with the assistance of the researcher.The questionnaire was divided into the following dimensions: participation in social organizations, community action, questions on trust from the World Values Survey, and willingness to participate in a hypothetical RCBT project.The scenario of this hypothetical project is available as a supplementary material.Table 3 reports the questions considered in the survey, response alternatives, coding of each variable used in the analysis, and the summary statistics.In order to understand the association between these variables, we analyzed the data collected by estimating correlation coefficients.Moreover, with a one-way ANOVA test we assessed whether the willingness to participate in the hypothetical RCBT project, is driven by potential differences in the level of social capital among respondents.

Results
In this section we present the results from the mixed-method approach.We first describe the results of the qualitative approach, which considers the three main themes that emerged from the interviews: (i) market dynamics and social tensions; (ii) rural tourism: opportunities and challenges; (iii) culture and women.Thereafter, we present the results of the quantitative analysis.

Market dynamics and social tensions
Current discussions in Alto Ricaurte have to do with how market dynamics have affected social organizations.Leaders of producers associations point out that by opening the national economy to the global market in the 1990s, the State contributed to undermining collective action in the study site.This process caused the weakening of several State agencies in supporting agriculture.Consequently, some small producers' associations succumbed to a market system that prioritizes efficiency.In this regard, one of the leaders of a producer association expressed 2 : Confidence in one's own abilities was lost, there is a feeling of a community of losers, in an economic sector in which the rules are defined by big players, and where it is difficult for small producers to survive due to asymmetric conditions . . . it prevented progress in the associativity processes with other actors.
Nevertheless, four of the producers' organizations, whose current leaders participated in this study, survived as a result of self-implementing better production and marketing practices.Such is the case for blueberry producers in Ráquira, milk and tomato producers in Tinjacá, Sutamarchán, and Sáchica, and artisans in Villa de Leyva and Gachantivá.In addition, some women established cooperative microfinance projects that enabled the provision of business startup loans to fund small entrepreneurship projects for the production of wool, food, and clay products, mostly traded in local markets.
Local communities are active in land use planning discussions, where tensions with governmental entities are not uncommon.The latter are more inclined to incentivize investment and land used exclusively for commercial purposes.For instance, recently, new large-scale farms for medical cannabis have appeared there, with licenses approved in the capital city of Bogotá without any prior consultation with the local communities.All local government officials and farmer leaders also expressed concerns about a boom in tomato monoculture that has been observed in the province over the past decade.Even though they recognize positive effects of this activity, for example as a source of employment, interviewees also stated that it creates environmental problems because the use of fertilizers damages soil and aquifers.For example, one farmer leader stated that: . . . it has been a salvation because it creates jobs, and sustains the economy and suppliers of inputs in the municipality.

While another peasant leader said that:
Modern technologies and techniques applied in agriculture are unsustainable in the territory, and contrast with RCBT as a promise of development; the latter activity is a less risky alternative than this type of agriculture.
Moreover, as shown in Figure 4, greenhouse tomato production alters the landscape of all the municipalities in the study site, which negatively impacts tourism.Therefore, this activity would be incompatible with both RCBT and traditional tourism, in part due to its negative impact on water resources and the landscape.For this and other reasons, several stakeholders have warned of the risks brought about by the pressure on natural resources, which has led to meetings and agreements to protect these resources.
In all, even though parts of the local community are in favor of these economic activities, others are not, creating disputes regarding land use planning.These social tensions encompass other aspects of the daily life of rural communities such as water management.A social leader stated: The local governments have seen the possible privatization of the aqueducts as a business opportunity, but they have encountered resistance from the communities, which preserves the existence of the communal aqueducts to this day.

Rural tourism: Opportunities and challenges
Five out of eight local government officials think that the reinforcement as a destination for mass tourism, particularly in the municipality of Villa de Leyva, makes Alto Ricaurte a heterogeneous province, with positive and negative impacts in the municipality and the whole province.In a quote that summarizes this pattern, a secretary of tourism stated: The municipality of Villa de Leyva is taken as a learning reference, on what should be done and what should not be done in tourism . . .there is a growing awareness of the contradiction that has been observed in Alto Ricaurte and in particular, in the municipality of Villa de Leyva; economic expansion and the lack of planning have exceeded the supply capacity of resources such as water.
In this context, tourism operators think that RCBT has several challenges to become an viable activity.One of them stated: The rural population does not have much knowledge about tourism, but to the extent that it is felt that this activity has been increasing . . .what is important is the participation of the communities from their associations.

Another tourism operator said that:
The State requires the English language to be an official tourist guide, and this has excluded many local people . . .like Baquianos, whose job is valued by the community as for their support in the construction of memory and detailed geographic knowledge.Some emerging organizations have been working in addressing part of these challenges, and overcome what a tourist guide calls "the traditional vision of looking at the alternative processes of small operators, such as RCBT, as a fraternization among the poor."A peasant leader indicated this by saying: With the support of Adel Dinosaurios [an organization], we are taking steps to become part of the community tourism network in Alto Ricaurte . . .Adel has been our redemption, and together Even more challenging, it is to make RCBT a viable and planned activity for the region.One participant indicated that: The tourism they want must be structured at the provincial level, planning must prevail among all the municipalities, and the most important thing must be to talk and take care of the territory beyond a individualistic culture.

Culture and women
We found specific characteristics of each municipality, which are part of province's identity.In addition to Sutamarchán's typical sausage and Sáchica's rural chicken dish, Villa de Leyva is recognized for its micromanufacturing, Tinjacá's crafts made with tagua seeds, clay pots in Ráquira, while Santa Sofía and Gachantivá stand out for their natural attributes.Furthermore, the communities of Alto Ricaurte share other characteristics, such as the microclimate, physical -spatial formations of connectivity, and archeological, geological, and landscape compositions.64% of interviewees perceives that these factors unify them and form a provincial identity, which is found beyond the specific municipality where they live.In all these practices, tourism operators think that women have an important role.One of them expressed: Rural women have been involved in different initiatives as providers of services such as restaurants, handicrafts of hats and footwear . . .and leaders in the promotion of rural trails.They are proud to be bearers of memory and narratives of their traditions . . .They are key in the promotion of rural tourism.

Quantitative analysis
In general, market and political dynamics existing in this study site, described above, lead to community apathy toward governments and authorities, causing low levels of participation of members from different types of organizations (see Figure 5).
As for responses to the questions taken from the World Values Survey on trust, 59% of respondents believes that most people would try to be fair to them, but 68% finds it necessary to be careful when dealing with others, reflecting contrasting locals' behavior regarding trust (see Table 3).As shown in Figures 6 and 7, building trust in certain institutions and actors is part of the challenge of accumulating the social capital needed for RCBT operations.Respondents perceive their neighbors and tourists as having good intentions, but the perception of banking institutions and commercial intermediaries is not positive (see Figure 6).In addition, they have high level of trust in producer associations and local firms, but low trust in faith-based leaders.The high level of trust in community action boards (JAC) contrasts with the midrange perception of their presidents (see Figure 7).
The development of RCBT in Alto Ricaurte implies forming a sort of social contract with possibilities for joint work, in which the value of trust plays a key role in reaching   agreements, including the functionality of private property.To examine this idea, the survey included a scenario with a hypothetical RCBT project.After reading the scenario, the respondent was asked the following question: "Would you like to participate in an RCBT project in your municipality, where your farm or land is included as a rural accommodation for visitors coming from other places?"To which 90% of respondents answered yes.
In order to find out whether there exists any difference between the groups that are willing and unwilling to participate in the hypothetical project, we analyzed the variables measured in the survey.First, we calculated pairwise correlations to uncover potential relations of interest (see Table 4).From these results, we took into account the significant correlation between WTP and Particip to conduct a one-way ANOVA (see Table 5).This model appears to be significant at the 0.36% level, revealing that there is a statistically significant difference in mean WTP between those who frequently participate in an organization and those who do not.

Capacity for collective action
In the study site, rural communities have a connection to the land that goes beyond mere production activities.It involves their ways of living and cultural identity; hence the moral defense of its continuity even amid ongoing adversities since the XX century (Fals Borda, 1957).Some examples of "self-help" (Bhattacharyya, 2004) are found in the production of different crops, handicrafts and financial services, which has contributed to their own development.Nevertheless, power struggles, and disputes on conceptions about local development, between certain groups, have helped visibilize local leaders, who organize the community in defense of traditional land use, and question an extractivist model  based on new agricultural and mass tourism activities that have been emerging in the province.
According to our qualitative and quantitative findings, collective action identified in the field lacks development, and is in need of more awareness regarding its challenges, potentiality, and threats.Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen social capital to generate a consensus in order to face different challenges.For instance, the lack of trust in local governments, contrasts with what the literature suggests.In this sense, local authorities should work with their communities under what Keyim (2015, p. 535) calls a "collaborative governance" approach; i.e. understanding their needs to improve community's economic welfare and ensure sustainable development.Hence, mayors and their teams could help strengthen trust, and social capital, by engaging in more interactive meetings with organizations like community action boards or producer associations to be aware of their needs, search for solutions, and work on implementing them collaboratively.As part of these joint efforts, the promotion of RCBT projects might also strengthen social capital (Okazaki, 2008).

Community perception of RCBT
RCBT rescues culture and tradition, not as a connection to the past but as part of a regional identity to be shared with visitors.Thus, making visitors experience local traditions through food can be a meaningful strategy for the development of local communities (Talmage, 2020).Notwithstanding, beyond gastronomy, we have showed that Alto Ricaurte has a complex fabric, made up of specific characteristics and traditions of each municipality in the province, all which are also part of its regional identity.All in all, in connection with previous literature (Alieva & Usmonova, 2021;Grybovych & Hafermann, 2010;Lee & Jan, 2019), RCBT could benefit the sustainable management of local cultural resources, such as archeological discoveries.Furthermore, considering province's natural attributes, RBCT might impact sustainable management of resources like water.
Greater participation from the rural community and negotiation processes are necessary, even in planning tourist activities.As part of this, and given the connection of the willingness to participate in the hypothetical RCBT project with the actual participation in an organization, the creation of the association figure would strengthen the community's engagement in planning, which also is considered a requirement for the development of RCBT (Brent Ritchie, 1988;Del Cairo et al., 2018;Jamal & Getz, 1995;Keogh, 1990).Furthermore, an association of this type could serve as a catalyzer for collective action around RBCT (Hwang & Stewart, 2017).
Despite respondents' willingness to participate in a RCBT project, this result should be interpreted with caution.The current conditions of the RCBT structure might hinder actual participation in a community development project (Bhattacharyya, 2004;Dadvar-Khani, 2012;Keyim, 2015;Kunjuraman, 2021).For instance, as part of the market dynamics in the study site, some modern agricultural practices would be incompatible with both RCBT and traditional tourism as well, in part due to its negative impact on landscape and water resources.Other constraints include the current relationship with local governments, poor institutional support, communities' abilities, capital resources, compliance of national norms for tourism activities, inequality (Roberts, 2011), and the distribution of benefits (Blackstock, 2005;Keyim, 2015;Kosmaczewska et al., 2016).Furthermore, merely participating in the project does not guarantee positive outcomes (Roberts, 2011).Moreover, the project should not only consider the provincial cultural identity, but also diversity and differences, including sexual diversity and the struggle of women to overcome patriarchal oppression.

Conclusion
In this article, we examined the capacity for collective action regarding RCBT, in a context of social tensions.As a contribution to the community development literature, and professionals working in similar regions, we have sought to understand RCBT from a comprehensive perspective, taking into account the economic and social dynamics that frame the decisions of rural communities.Furthermore, we considered some behavioral issues such as factors that determine social capital, its connection to the willingness to participate in a potential RCBT project, and identified some opportunities and challenges communities must overcome to develop a RCBT project.
Some limitations of this study are as follows: (i) we did not study the implementation of any specific RCBT project, but the setting under which any project of this kind could be carried out in a region like our study site; (ii) the sample size used in our survey was small, what allows an exploration rather than generalization; (iii) we did not make other institutional analyses about, for instance, governance issues concerning the management of commons present in rural areas, and that might be part of a particular RCBT project; (iv) thinking in the sustainability of any RCBT project, youth aspirations in rural activities may also be another issue to consider in the analysis.
For Latin American countries, Mattar and Cuervo (2017) point out that, contrary to what happened between the 1960s and the 1980s when planning did not consider social actors, current development planning must contribute to building a sense of belonging to a community and a collective future.Hence, RCBT projects can be part of this new vision of development planning.
Based on our findings, we suggest that the promotion of RCBT may require encouraging and strengthening cooperative work.For instance, creating an association might help to overcome several challenges, such as access to ICTs, improving relationships with the government, compliance with national norms for tourism activities, and addressing distributional issues.In sum, traditional forms of organization such as cooperatives, associations, and NGOs may not only help to respond to specific issues but boost rural households' participation in the tourism supply chain.Furthermore, under this institutional arrangement, rural communities could engage in political spaces such as territorial planning, and the implementation of some specific actions in coordination with local government, in order to promote RCBT.

Notes
1.The identification of these interviewees was possible due to initial interviews with local government officials.The category "farmer leader" is a group of people that is recognized as such by different stakeholders in the field.We conducted the interviews in specific places agreed with the interviewees.2. " . . ." denotes that a section of transcription is deleted.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3.Total population in the study area, 2000-2020 (thousands).Source: The authors with data from DANE

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Greatest obstacles for organizations in Alto Ricaurte.

Table 1 .
Total interviewees by municipality and gender.

Table 2 .
Inventory of tourist actors in Alto Ricaurte Province and sample for each type.

Table 3 .
Survey questions, variable coding and summary statistics.
a community action boards, producers' association, citizen oversight, community service group, sport group.

Table 5 .
One-way ANOVA results for WTP.