Tourism, Food, and Culture: Community‐Based Tourism, Local Food, and Community Development in M pondoland

Tourism is often seen as a tool for poverty alleviation and community development. This article highlights community‐based tourism as a possible strategy for the development of poor communities. It further investigates how specific cultural contexts––in this case, that of rural M pondoland, S outh A frica––can contribute to positive community‐based tourism development outcomes. In this sense, the local culture is not seen as a tourist attraction but as a resource on which community‐based tourism development can be built. The article locates community‐based tourism within a more general strategy of diversifying rural livelihoods. Poor households in rural areas meet their needs through a combination of livelihood strategies and community‐based tourism is seen as an additional means to meet household needs. In addition, local culture becomes a tourism resource using indigenous foods, arts, and crafts as tourism attractions. Food is one example of a local cultural resource that has the potential to facilitate a number of community benefits.