Liberating sustainability indicators : developing and implementing a community-operated tourism sustainability indicator system in Boga Lake, Bangladesh

In cases of donor-funded community-based tourism (CBT) initiatives, sustainability indicators are often developed and used by donors or NGOs for progress reporting purposes, and the voice of the local community is often ignored. In cases where bottom-up participatory approaches have been employed, local communities may be involved in the process of indicator development as participants but are usually not given the opportunity to operate the indicator system independently. This study describes a methodological procedure for developing and implementing a local community-operated grassroots level CBT sustainability indicator system in Boga Lake, Bangladesh. The sixteen-step methodological process to formulate CBT sustainability indicators involved in-depth interviews, workshops, working group meetings, and an empirical examination of the indicator system in practice. The local community were able to form a community research team, develop survey questionnaires and observation checklists, collect and analyse data, and write a report. The community believed that their research-based sustainability reports could serve as strong evidence to negotiate with local authorities and other stakeholders, while also helping them learn and adapt their tourism-related initiatives. Further, there is evidence the community considered it as a matter of pride to operate their own indicator system.