This study investigates the impact of tourism development on the well-being of impoverished residents in the urban area of La Candelaria, Bogotá, and the rural area of La Macarena, Meta. The participants were recruited using Colombia’s SISBÉN classification system by approaching individuals in public spaces such as bakeries, markets, and restaurants. After confirming their residency, only those classified in categories A (extreme poverty), B (moderate poverty), or C (vulnerable population) were included in the study. Data collection took place in May 2017, resulting in 307 surveys from the participants across both locations. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), the findings reveal that economic benefits are the most influential factor, significantly enhancing happiness and life satisfaction. While cultural and environmental benefits are acknowledged, they are less directly linked to personal well-being. The study highlights tourism’s complex role in promoting economic growth and shaping the social, cultural, and environmental aspects of community life. However, it also identifies potential risks, such as environmental degradation and social disruption, particularly in different spatial contexts. The research underscores the need for tourism development to provide tangible, personal benefits that align with residents’ economic and emotional priorities, ensuring sustainable and equitable outcomes, especially considering the spatial disparities between urban and rural areas that influence tourism’s effectiveness in improving well-being and alleviating poverty.

This article explores and discusses community-based tourism (CBT) and proposes a model intended to be exemplary for CBT cases throughout most of the world’s emerging countries. Further, this paper aims at establishing a connection between competitiveness and local CBT development, calling therefore the proposed model C-CBT. The authors try to establish the motivations to develop this type of tourism, as well as the drawbacks, grouping them into the C-CBT model. This model is then used as a comparative tool and applied to two territories in Colombia which have suffered from conflict in the last decades and have subsequently developed CBT. As for the field work in the two locales, it is based on interviews and observation carried out in the context of tourism development projects in both areas. The outcome is a clearer understanding of the factors that favor CBT initiatives and connects these with competitiveness frameworks, with the added interest that the presented cases come from a severely conflict-burdened country.

This research note reports ongoing work pertaining to tourism development in an indigenous community in Colombia, South America. The goal is to present the community, their tourist resources and assess the community’s degree of readiness towards the development process while, at the same time, discussing and applying a tool to measure the different dimensions of community‐based tourism. The results are disparate, in the sense that some dimensions are fairly solid and others weak or non‐existent. Especially, public support and investments are found to be missing, which may jeopardise any future development. To counter this, we propose including ‘tourism development’ in the community’s Life Plan, a legal tool which aims atimproving their quality of life.

La reciente publicación de la Organización Mundial del Turismo de las Naciones Unidas con apoyo de la Cooperación Japonesa, "Achieving the SDGs through Tourism—Toolkit of Indicators for Projects (TIPs)" es un recurso integral que orienta a los gestores de proyectos sobre cómo alinear el desarrollo turístico con los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS), ofreciendo indicadores específicos para mejorar la medición, monitoreo, y ejecución de proyectos turísticos. Es un “kit de herramientas” que aborda cada uno de los 17 ODS, explicando su relevancia y conexión con el turismo, y proponiendo indicadores prácticos junto con sus justificaciones.

This study examines the effects of tourism development on the well-being of impoverished residents in both urban (La Candelaria, Bogotá) and rural (La Macarena, Meta) regions of Colombia. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), the findings reveal that personal economic benefits from tourism are the most vital factor in enhancing residents' happiness and life satisfaction. The analysis outlines a pathway from economic gain to happiness, improving life satisfaction. Additionally, the study highlights tourism's role in exacerbating the urban-rural divide, offering insights into migration trends and regional inequality. Practical recommendations are provided for policymakers to ensure balanced tourism development across regions.

En esta reseña se presenta un resumen crítico del texto A Journey to Happiness – Discovering Well-Being through Tourism, escrito por el Dr. Robertico Croes, en donde condensa sus investigaciones para explorar la relación entre el turismo y la felicidad en las personas que viajan, así como la relación del turismo con un potencial mejoramiento del bienestar y mejoramiento en la calidad de vida de las personas que residen en los destinos turísticos visitados. El autor presenta diez lecciones aprendidas a lo largo de sus investigaciones y, de ahí, genera siete planteamientos a manera de hipótesis que son presentados en este texto.