Stakeholder Involvement in Community-Based Tourism and Livelihoods: A Case Study of Abai Village, Lower Kinabatangan Area of Sabah, Malaysia

A substantial amount of community-based tourism literature has acknowledged that both external and internal stakeholder participations are vital for the success of community-based tourism projects in rural areas, particularly in developing countries. Although studies related to the said subject is popular among tourism scholars, there is still a limited number of studies on stakeholders' participation in tourism development in rural areas of developing countries especially in Sabah, Thus, this paper explores the stakeholders' participation in community-based ecotourism activities in the village of Abai which located in the lower region in Kinabatangan, Sabah. Community-based tourism activities in Abai Village have been introduced in 2001 with the assistance of some external stakeholders especially WWF and Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment Sabah. The involvement of external stakeholders in Abai's community-based tourism projects has been acknowledged by the local community. This is because they are lacking in tourism management skills, experience and low level of income. In conjunction with that, a qualitative research approach with in-depth interviews and on-site observation methods were applied. The findings revealed that external stakeholders' support is significant in the early stage of community-based ecotourism development in Abai. The idea of tourism development brought by the external stakeholders has encouraged the community to be active and participate in tourism activities as well as creating a platform to diversify their economic livelihoods. The study suggests that serious, new capacity building programmes and workshops are needed to boost the participants' confidence level as well as their enthusiasm. It is recommended that such initiatives should be taken to sustain community-based ecotourism in the near future.