The contribution of the community-based homestay programme to sustainable community development in Malaysia

Abstract Sustainable community development is a current approach to development that has evolved from previous approaches. In Malaysia, the community-based homestay programme, which is a collective project undertaken by community members, is promoted to rural villages by the Malaysian government as a development strategy. In fact, the homestay programme has the potential to generate additional income for the villagers and provide an avenue for them to participate in tourism development. It also offers cultural exchange between the hosts and the guests, and incorporates the surrounding environment, including farms and the rural landscape, as the main attractions. Nevertheless, research on the Malaysian homestay programme as a development strategy is scarce and predominantly focuses on villages with programmes that are performing well in terms of generating tourist revenue. Although it may be economically viable, economic criterion alone does not guarantee that the programme and the community will be sustainable in the future, justifying the sustainable community development focus of this thesis. Sustainable community development is based on the principle that the community is able to utilise its resources while ensuring future generations have enough resources, reflecting the concepts of equity, a development by the people and for the people, and self-sufficiency. Consequently, three important issues are addressed in this thesis; 1) the distribution of costs and benefits among local people, 2) the nature of local participation, and 3) the self-reliance of the community. In framing the issues, the thesis is underpinned by several theories relating to earlier development theories, sustainable tourism development, sustainable community development, and pro-poor tourism. Unlike previous research which concentrated primarily on the host group with only minor representation from other village members, this thesis seeks to assess all groups in the village; the host, non-host and non-participant. A total of 90 interviews were undertaken in three different categories of homestay villages, in addition to another 10 interviews with representatives from the government and the Malaysian Homestay Association. Semi-structured interviews provided primary data for this study while secondary data was sourced from document analysis. Consequently, the multiple data collection method, including field notes, and various types of data heighten the credibility of this research through triangulation. To provide a framework for the discussion, the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (DFID, 1999) was applied to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of each homestay village. Overall, the results of this research reveal that the homestay programme is not able to contribute to sustainable community development when it is not accepted by all members of the community. Based on the results, this thesis proposes a framework towards an improvement in the organisation, the management and the community of homestay through an assessment and monitoring system. By implementing the concepts in the proposed Sustainable Livelihoods Framework for Homestay Programme (SLF-HP), it is hoped that such programmes will increase, sustain and expand the benefits to a larger number of community members