ACHIECING COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT IN MIT RAHINA SITE

Community engagement has been recognized as one of the most important goals and principles for achieving sustainable tourism. There is no doubt that in order to achieve sustainable tourism development, communities must be engaged, but it is strange that a few studies have been conducted especially in the middle east region to understand the requirements of these communities and their views and how to engage them in the process of tourism development. However, if the concept of community engagement is dealt with on the basis that it is a kind of control over resources without an accurate understanding of the principles of sustainable development, then the concept of sustainable tourism development will remain a theoretical concept. For sustainable tourism, attention and preservation of these communities are fundamental to ensure the economic, social and cultural benefits for communities and their environment. The paper discusses the need for more efforts for engaging local communities in developing and improving the archaeological sites, Mit Rahina area represents the case study area. The paper utilizes the primary and secondary data that are relevant to that issue. With mentioning some of the successful models that succeeded in engaging the local community in development processes.