What community for community-based tourism?

Community-based tourism (CBT) is a way of organizing tourism that must have a consistent effect on the configuration of the community. Therefore, community is a strategic element in the analysis of CBT. However, studies into CBT are usually lacking an anchoring point for a solid conceptualization of community. To define community in the context of CBT, we propose a phenomenological perspective that focuses on collective action and reciprocity; this analytical strategy helps us to better understand CBT experiences and evaluate their consistency. To illustrate and develop our proposal, we present two ethnographic case studies to analyse the articulation between tourism and community. Although more in-depth exploration of this theoretical perspective is needed, it appears to enhance our understanding of the nature of community-based tourism and the possibility of establishing comparative criteria between experiences.