Cruise tourism and community-based tourism: towards a possible relationship

Abstract Tourism is a relevant growing industry worldwide and is often regarded as an important development tool. The cruise tourism sector is also an important segment of the tourism industry and is viewed as having positive and negative features. Community-based tourism (CBT) is a relatively new type of tourism and, despite its possible problems and limitations, it has been known to foster community development. In view of the aforementioned issues as a contextual background this paper aims to explore possible collaboration opportunities between cruise tourism and CBT. The paper focuses on a literature review on cruise tourism and CBT. It then explores the possible relationship between the two forms of tourism. A relationship and linkages between cruise tourism and community-based tourism is subsequently proposed. The value of both cruise tourism and CBT on the local disadvantaged section of the population is suggested. Some specific references to the South African context will be proposed in the paper