A model of measurement dimensionality for community empowerment in tourism

Community empowerment plays a key role in successful sustainable tourism development which has a focus on sustainable development of local communities. However, the conceptualisation and measurement of this concept remain ambiguous in tourism literature. This paper examines the conceptual frameworks of community empowerment in tourism and other related disciplines. It argues that the current frameworks do not perform a comprehensive, multilevel measurement of community empowerment. Therefore, a model of dimensionality for measurement of this concept in tourism is proposed in this paper, and it can be applied to case studies to assess community empowerment as a positive social impact of community-based tourism initiatives.