An integrated approach to assess the impacts of tourism on community development and sustainable livelihoods

A key challenge in sustainable tourism is to develop economically viable enterprises that provide livelihood benefits to local communities while protecting indigenous cultures and environments. Such ventures are difficult to assess due to a general lack of effective assessment and monitoring methods, a lack of consensus about methodology and the inability of some monitoring systems to incorporate all elements of tourism impacts. This article presents a structured integrated assessment approach to assess the impacts of initiatives that purport to deliver net livelihood benefits to communities living adjacent to or within the tourism destination. The approach has been developed to enable generic use in different geographical contexts taking into account a variety of aspects including ownership structure, levels of employment, infrastructure, governance, and sustainable livelihoods (SL). The article examines two pilot case studies conducted in Maputaland, South Africa, to reflect on the implementation and theoretical underpinnings of the protocol.