While the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major setbacks to the Thai tourism industry, the disruption also provides an opportunity for Thailand to reimagine and reposition its tourism industry to move forward on a more sustainable and resilient path. Thailand has been fortunate to have community-based tourism (CBT) playing a role in driving the sustainable tourism agenda. CBT allows local people to benefit fully from the economic benefits of tourism and balance economic growth and socio-cultural and environmental impacts caused by tourism activities.

Like the overall tourism industry, CBT has been affected by many changing trends since the pandemic. It is evident to local communities now that we are living in a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Therefore, in addition to the focus on sustainability, being anticipatory and adaptive is now critical to the survival of CBT.

The UNDP Accelerator Lab Thailand in collaboration with Local Alike developed the Community-Based Tourism Social Innovation Playbook which consolidates useful social innovation tools to help CBT to become sustainable and more anticipatory of uncertainties.