Jordan: Tourism and conflict with local communities

The inevitable socio-cultural conflict between the tourism industry and local inhabitants in Jordanian historic towns challenges the tourism development process.The level of interrelation between government, residents and foreign visitors is critical in several circumstances, mainly due to the available instruments of territorial planning dealing with tourism policies, the local community benefits specifically from the social and economic point of view, the respect of natural resources and authentic culture of place.Methodologically, comprehending the environmental context in order to connect tangible (physical and material aspects) and intangible (perceptual, tradition or living heritage) factors could contribute to set a suitable and a holistic planning policy to tackle with tourism inconveniencies. This is recommended in alleviating some conflict generators, taking into consideration the investors’ interests, tourists and local community satisfaction.