Community Participation and Empowerment in Rural Post-Communist Societies: Lessons from the Leader Approach in Pomerania, Poland

Empowerment, community participation and social capital have all been heavily researched within tourism development, yet few have looked at how they apply in a post-communist rural society. Filling the gap, this work helps to understand the community participation and empowerment in rural post-communist communities. The study demonstrates that despite there being an agreement that sustainable tourism development must consider residents’ needs and involve them in planning processes, empowering communities in the post-communist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) setting is challenging owing to the unique political culture of the CEE. The qualitative approach was used to better capture tourism stakeholders' perspectives and experiences of challenges to community participation in tourism development in a post-communist setting.