Community-based tourism homestays' capacity to advance the Sustainable Development Goals: A holistic sustainable livelihood perspective

Community-based tourism is an approach to tourism presumed to achieve progress on SDG1 No Poverty and SDG11 Sustainable Cities and Communities. In rural communities, homestays are a critical CBT component given tourists need lodging and the capacity to involve many village families. As a result, h h homestays appear to make a positive contribution to lifting whole families out of poverty while retaining decision-making within the community. However, it is not clear what the true capacity is of homestays' to advance these SDGs when examining them from a holistic sustainable livelihood perspective. This research adopts the Sustainable Livelihood Framework to critically examine both livelihood benefits and costs of operating a homestay. Taking a case-study approach, semi-structured interviews, observation notes and secondary sources were combined to study homestay operators in a CBT destination in Laos. Findings highlight that operating homestays offers significant capacity to advance SDG1 and 11, however, extensive costs requiring collective planning and management were also uncovered.