Co-management of capitals for community wellbeing and sustainable tourism development: A conceptual framework

Abstract

A broader view of sustainable tourism development is becoming increasingly apparent, in which the discourse of sustainability has been extended to include notions of tourism/community capitals, sustainable livelihoods, quality of life (QoL) and community wellbeing. This research note employs a qualitative literature review approach to set out a conceptual framework by revisiting the existing Sustainable Livelihood Framework for Tourism (SLFT). The framework contributes to the existing sustainable tourism development and/or destination development literature by introducing “co-management” as a balanced decision-making tool (representing transforming structures and processes) for destination resources (being referred as capitals). In so doing, the governance aspects of tourism destination resources are underpinned with a view to generating sustainable livelihood outcomes. From an operational perspective, the framework allows policy makers to think of alternative structures at destination level to create sustainable livelihood impacts and thereby facilitate sustainable development of tourism.