This publication contains details of private or public tourism projects that have been presented by WTO Member States as examples of good, sustainable practices for poverty reduction through tourism. They are drawn from 26 case studies from 20 countries including three LDCs (least developed countries) of Ethiopia, Mali and Mozambique, and include examples of projects relating to agro-tourism, tourism micro-entrepreneur networks, village tourism, community-based hotels, parks or protected areas, guide training and handicraft development.

First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book provides a holistic, explicit and detailed introduction to the relationship of poverty and tourism development within the context of developing countries. The book is divided into three distinct sections, progressing from an evaluation of the key concepts, the causal factors of poverty and how tourism is being implemented in policy and practice to reduce poverty, to the relationship of tourism and poverty in the future. The theoretical framework inherent to the text is inter-disciplinary, incorporating tourism, geography, politics, economics, environmental studies, development studies, sociology and history literature to provide the reader with a range of perspectives from which to explore the key issues of the tourism and poverty relationship. It integrates examples and original case studies from varying geographical developing regions including Latin American, Asia and Africa to show practical insights into tourism’s role in poverty alleviation. To encourage reflection on the main themes addressed and critical thinking, ‘Think points’, discussion questions and links to further reading are included in each chapter.

Over the past decade, there have been an increasing number of publications that have analysed and critiqued the potential of tourism to be a mechanism for poverty reduction in less economically developed countries (LEDCs). This book showcases work by established and emerging researchers that provides new thinking and tests previously made assumptions, providing an essential guide for students, practitioners and academics. This book advances our understanding of the changes and ways forward in the field of sustainable tourism development. Five main themes are illustrated throughout the book: (1) measuring impacts of tourism on poverty; (2) the need to evaluate whether interventions that aim to reduce poverty are effective; (3) how unbalanced power relations and weak governance can undermine efforts; (4) the importance of the private sector’s use of pro-poor business practices; and (5) the value of using multidisciplinary and multi-method research approaches. Furthermore, the book shows that academic research findings can be used practically in destinations, and how practitioners can benefit from sharing their experiences with academic scholars. This book was based on a special issue and various articles from the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

1. Introduction -- 2. Poverty and tourism unpacked -- 3. Tourism entrenches poverty -- 4. Poverty attracts tourists -- 5. Tourism reduces poverty-- tourism industry approaches -- 6. Tourism reduces poverty--government approaches -- 7. Tourism reduces poverty-- development agency approaches -- 8. Conclusion.

Tourism, one of the world’s leading industries, has propelled countries into recovery from economic recession. As a multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral, holistic, and systemic industry, tourism also uniquely placed to address the concerns of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While the relationships between tourism, sustainability, and sustainable development are the subjects of deep study, the direct positive effects of tourism on SDGs remain underdiscussed. The Handbook of Research on the Role of Tourism in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals is a collection of innovative research that explores sustainable practices within the tourism industry. While highlighting a broad range of topics including economic growth, education, and production patterns, this book is ideally designed for engineers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, executives, advocates, researchers, academicians, and students.

With the aim of contributing to the understanding of tourism as a tool for poverty alleviation and sustainable development, UNWTO jointly with SNV produced this publication, which outlines some practical steps that can be taken in tourism destinations to shape and manage tourism in ways which deliver more benefits to disadvantaged individuals and communities.

Slum tourism is a globalizing trend and a controversial form of tourism. Impoverished urban areas have always enticed the popular imagination, considered to be places of ‘otherness’, ‘moral decay’, ‘deviant liberty’ or ‘authenticity’. ‘Slumming’ has a long tradition in the Global North, for example in Victorian London when the upper classes toured the East End. What is new, however, is its development dynamics and its rapidly spreading popularity across the globe. Township tourism and favela tourism have currently reached mass tourism characteristics in South Africa and in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In other countries of the Global South, slum tourism now also occurs and providers see huge growth potential. While the morally controversial practice of slum tourism has raised much attention and opinionated debates in the media for several years, academic research has only recently started addressing it as a global phenomenon. This edition provides the first systematic overview of the field and the diverse issues connected to slum tourism. This multidisciplinary collection is unique both in its conceptual and empirical breadth. Its chapters indicate that ‘global slumming’ is not merely a controversial and challenging topic in itself, but also offers an apt lens through which to discuss core concepts in critical tourism studies in a global perspective, in particular: ‘poverty’, ‘power’ and ‘ethics’. Building on research by prolific researchers from ten different countries, the book provides a comprehensive and unique insight in the current empirical, practical and theoretical knowledge on the subject. It takes a thorough and critical review of issues associated with slum tourism, asking why slums are visited, whether they should be visited, how they are represented, who is benefiting from it and in what way. It offers new insights to tourism's role in poverty alleviation and urban regeneration, power relations in contact zones and tourism's cultural and political implications. Drawing on research from four continents and seven different countries, and from multidisciplinary perspectives, this ground-breaking volume will be valuable reading for students, researchers and academics interested in this contemporary form of tourism.

This book provides practical policy recommendations that are useful for developing Asia and for accelerating poverty reduction plans in the rest of the world. Poverty reduction in all its forms remains one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. In developing Asia, rapid growth in countries and sub-regions such as China, India, and Southeast Asia has lifted millions out of poverty, but progress has been uneven. On the other hand, the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the global economic recession that it has caused are pushing millions of people back into poverty. Poverty reduction, inclusive growth, and sustainable development are inseparable, and poverty reduction is the premise for sustainable development. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a bold commitment to finish what we started and end poverty in all forms and dimensions by 2030. However, because of the current global recession, the world is not on track to end poverty by 2030. Given the aforementioned situation, if we plan to achieve the no-poverty target in line with the SDGs, governments need to reconsider their policies and economies need to allocate their resources for this aim. Owing to the importance of the topic, this book provides several thematic and empirical studies on the roles of small and medium-sized enterprises, local businesses and trusts, international remittances and microfinance, energy security and energy efficiency in poverty reduction, and inclusive growth.

Over the past 20 years, the perception of tourism as an effective contributor to socio-economic development in the developing world has propagated, with many viewing tourism as a provider for poverty alleviation and towards other UN Millennium Development Goals. Over the same period, readers have become familiar with the paradoxes, complexities and inequalities of tourism in relation to development, wealth creation, growth, redistribution, governance and ‘hosts-guests’ relationships. This volume further extends this critical debate with a much-needed cohesive publication on Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA). In an era of fluctuating tourist arrivals at global level, the growth of tourism in SSA requires deeper consideration in terms of its inconsistent and questionable implications at local level. Taking as a central theme the debate on whether tourism should be used in development efforts, this book examines the way in which tourism has controversially become the way forward to development in several SSA locations and assesses bottlenecks to sustainable development as well as dilemmas and challenges faced by those SSA destinations seeking to achieve development through tourism. It offers an explicit set of chapters adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing upon tourism studies, human geography, sociology, anthropology, political economy, development and environmental studies, and integrates case studies authored by local African practitioners and academics to produce a book that gave voice to local experts on local realities. Combining an overview of key theories, concepts, contemporary issues and debates as well as practical insights from a wide range of regions in SSA, this book will be a valuable resource for those investigating the role of tourism in development.