to the concept of ‘ego- tourism’, in reference to ecotourism’s high cost and possible elitist perception. Mowforth and Munt (2009) similarly emphasise the duality of discourse between its perception of being elitist by protagonists in developing countries and its perception by proponents in developed countries as a means of protecting ecologically endangered habitats in the developing world. Despite the contestation over the term, there exists a recognised UNEP/WTO declaration on ecotourism: the ‘Quebec Declaration’, resulting from an international meeting during the United Nations’ International Year of Ecotourism in 2002. Embedded in this are fi ve key principles to defi ne ecotourism: a nature based product;
management to minimise the negative environmental impacts of tourism; envi-ronmental education; contribution to conservation; and a contribution to the community.
The debate about sustainable tourism and ecotourism raises issues about the extent that they truly represent a break in political ideology with mainstream neo- liberal discourses and paradigms or are a more ethical representation of it.
The same question can be asked of Pro-Poor Tourism (PPT), which is critically evaluated in Chapter 5. At the very least, to achieve a more radical alternative tourism agenda that will target poverty reduction, there is a need to politicise the tourism industry – a requirement that Mowforth and Munt (1998) highlighted in the late 1990s in the context of sustainability. The issue of how tourism is devel-oped and how it is used to provide livelihood opportunities for the poor and enhance their social well- being is subsequently a political one as much as it is economic. Can real change be achieved with what House (1997) refers to as
‘reformist’ school of thought of the existing political economic structures or is a much more radical agenda that challenges existing structures and development paradigms necessary?
THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF TOURISM: LINKAGES TO
It is the reported growth in the economic size of the tourism industry that is the most likely rationale of why it should attract policy makers’ intervention as a means for poverty reduction. Accepting an allowance for slight statistical error in the compilation of visitor arrival numbers from countries of the world, the UNWTO fi gures provide an indicative account of the rapid growth in interna-tional tourism during the last few decades. In 1950 there were approximately 25 million recorded international arrivals, in 1980 there were 270 million, 435 million in 1990, by 2011 this number has risen to 940 million and is expected to surpass 1,600 million by 2020 (UNWTO, 2012). This growth in international tourism demand has presented opportunities for an ever- increasing number of places to become tourist destinations, making tourism a key driver of socio- economic progress. The growth in its global economic signifi cance is underlined by it contributing approximately 30 per cent to the world’s exports of commercial services and 6 per cent of the overall export of goods and services in 2011 (ibid.).
In addition to this mobility between countries, there exists substantial movements and fl ows of residents between places within countries, referred to as domestic tourism. The signifi cance of domestic tourism for poverty reduction is that domestic tourists are more likely to display a higher propensity of utilising tourism enterprises initiated by the poor than the majority of international tourists, as they are familiar with local quality standards of service and produce.
Whilst international tourism fl ows are unevenly distributed between various regions of the world, with Europe, North and South-East Asia, and North America accounting for an overwhelming proportion of both supply and demand, it is the growth in international tourism arrivals to LDCs that is signifi cant in the context of utilising tourism for poverty reduction. Particularly since the fi rst decade of the twenty- fi rst century, there has been a marked increase in tourist arrivals to LDCs.
During the period 2000–2005, arrivals in LDCs grew by 48 per cent, compared to 34 per cent for all developing countries and 17 per cent worldwide (UNWTO, 2006b). For sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region in the world, the total number of international arrivals grew from 6.4 million in 1990 to 30.7 million in 2010, with an average annual growth rate for the period 2000 to 2010 of 6.6 per cent (UNWTO, 2012). For the same period, the average annual growth rate in interna-tional tourist arrivals to South Asia was 6.2 per cent, with recorded internainterna-tional tourist arrivals having risen from 3.2 million in 1990 to 11.1 million in 2010 (ibid.). These average annual growth rates in international tourist arrivals compare to 2.1 per cent for Europe and 0.7 per cent for North America over the same period. The signifi cance of this growth is that for some LDCs tourism has remained or become the largest export sector during the period 2000–2008, including the Maldives, Samoa, Eritrea, Gambia, Rwanda, Nepal and Senegal (UNDP, 2011).
Whilst the orientation of the tourism industry towards poverty reduction is rela-tively recent, the potential macro- economic benefi ts of tourism have been evident
since the 1950s. As part of the development process, the creation of export- earning industries is essential and for many developing countries tourism is espe-cially important in this aspect. Neo- liberalism stresses the requirement for countries to develop their economic comparative advantages within a free trade system for countries to boost their export earnings, particularly LDCs and devel-oping countries. Whilst LDCs can expand and increase their range of agricultural and mineral exports, primary products are subject to price fl uctuations in the world markets, making economic and development planning diffi cult. The devel-opment of manufactured goods to export is also highly problematic given the domination of the markets by existing manufacturing countries. Subsequently, the combination of the natural and cultural resources belonging to many LDCs and an increased tourist demand to see and experience them offers opportunities to national governments to gain economic benefi ts from tourism development.
It is particularly the macro- economic benefi ts that may be realised through tourism which are attractive to governments. These include the earnings of foreign exchange and contributions to the balance of payments. The importance of governments to have a positive balance of payments fi gure is that it enables them to service foreign loans and build up capital reserves, whilst a negative balance of payments is likely to necessitate increased levels of borrowing and a running down of capital reserves. The requirement to increase levels of borrowing through foreign loans from supranational agencies such as the IMF may also lead to a loss of government autonomy of national economic development plans, including imposed expenditure reductions on education, health and welfare for the poor, as was explained in the case of many developing countries under SAPs.
The use of tourism to stimulate extra economic demand is a further macro- economic benefi t that has a potential direct relationship to poverty reduction when the created economic opportunities are targeted at poor people. One measure of this demand is tourism’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country, which is indicative of the level of tourism’s importance to the economy.
In small island developing states (SIDS), the contribution of tourism to GDP can be highly signifi cant. For example, in Antigua and Barbuda, tourism made a direct contribution to the GDP in 2011 of 17.7 per cent and an estimated total contribu-tion, including both direct and indirect contributions of 74.9 per cent. In the Maldives, the fi gures were 31.3 per cent and 70.6 per cent respectively (WTTC, 2012). Whilst the importance of tourism to the economies of many SIDS is widely recognised, there is a danger of creating economic over- dependency upon tourism, making the economy and associated livelihoods vulnerable to downturns in tourism demand.
Essential for comprehending how tourism investment and expenditure can create economic opportunities for the poor that extend beyond direct engagement in the
tourism industry are economic multiplier effects. The basic rationale of the multi-plier effect is that investment and expenditure raises not only the level of demand directly in the tourism industry but also generates extra indirect demand in the economic sectors that supply it, which in turn induces demand in other sectors of the economy. For example, in the case of an investment project in a new hotel, the fi nancial capital used for the goods and services needed to construct it, such as building materials and construction workers’ wages, will circulate in the economy.
The recipients of this fi rst round of investment spending will in turn enter into additional spending of their own, as the suppliers of building materials purchase extra products to replace the ones they have used and the construction workers spend their remuneration on goods and services they require, in turn generating another round of spending.
From the investment in the hotel, money could theoretically circulate many times in the economy, generating extra demand at each stage and, importantly, opportu-nities for the poor in the tourism supply chain if they are integrated into it and in other sectors of the economy in which they work. However, the extent to which employment and income opportunities are created for the poor in the supply chain will depend upon several factors. If tourism enterprises choose foreign suppliers over local ones, then money will ‘leak’ out of the economy to pay external providers. Issues of the ability of local producers to supply goods, such as agricul-tural products that are of the right quality and can be supplied with the necessary regularity to meet demand, are often cited by the tourism industry as the reason for their choice of foreign suppliers. Another reason cited by the industry is that the mass tourism market prefers Western food with which they are familiar. Other factors that dictate against the inclusion of the poor in the local supply chain, either as employees or as small enterprises, include a lack of capacity relating to education, training and skills.
As a part of a programme for the use of tourism to reduce poverty, the creation of employment opportunities in the industry and supply chain for the poor will be essential. The pressure of a population demographics in LDCs, with a high percentage of young people constituting their populations, makes the creation of employment opportunities a priority concern for governments. Tourism has advan-tages for employment creation compared to other industries, including that the investment costs to create jobs are less than for manufacturing industry. The economic importance of tourism is refl ected in fi gures for global employment, with 8.7 per cent of the global workforce being employed directly or indirectly through tourism, an actual fi gure of approximately 255 million people (WTTC, 2012).
Similar to income, the multiplier effect also works for employment, generating extra jobs not only in the tourism sector but also indirectly through the supply chain in other sectors of the economy. The total percentage of the workforce
employed directly and indirectly through tourism is indicative of its importance to the economy. In several SIDS there is a heavy reliance on tourism employment as emphasised in the case of Antigua and Barbuda, which has approximately 18 per cent of employment directly generated by tourism and a combined total of 70 per cent directly and indirectly generated by tourism (WTTC, 2012). Similar to GDP, there is the danger of creating an over dependence upon tourism as a source of employment, making the workforce vulnerable to a decrease in tourism demand.
Issues also arise over the quality of employment opportunities created through tourism with criticisms having been made that the majority are low skilled, part time and seasonal, whilst also lacking trade union recognition. It is therefore important that in any strategy for tourism’s use in poverty reduction, structures are put in place to increase the poor’s technical capacity to work at a higher level in the industry and to ensure they have employee rights. However, the part- time character of tourism employment may be advantageous in terms of adding tourism as an additional income source to work in agriculture, which is likely to remain the most signifi cant economic activity for the rural poor. Part- time employment may also provide opportunities for women to gain paid employment in patriarchal societies where there remains an expectancy that their primary role is one of taking care of the family household and children.
Other factors that contribute to a rationale for the use of tourism for poverty reduction as shown in Figure 2.2 , include that tourism brings comparatively wealthy consumers from developed countries to the point of production, which offers a market for local entrepreneurs and the poor. Besides making a difference to the livelihoods of individuals, the poor can also make a contribu-tion to the nacontribu-tional economy because as the consumer travels to the destinacontribu-tion it offers the opportunities for the sale of extra goods and services, and the poor can become ‘exporters’. From a neo- liberal perspective this fi ts well in the context of increasing exports but critically from the perspective of poverty reduc-tion incorporates the poor into the equareduc-tion of export orientated economic growth.
Tourism can also offer a diversifi cation of the local economy when tourists visit peripheral regions of countries, defi ned by their geographical remoteness from major urban areas, which often contain the natural and cultural ‘resources’ that often appeal to tourists. It is the release of an economic value from these assets through tourism that offers an opportunity to diversify the local economy to meet the needs and wants of tourists. Other aspects that favour the use of tourism as a tool of poverty reduction is that compared to other economic sectors there are minimum trade barriers to overcome, permitting more opportunities for LDCs to be active in the global and international markets. The character of tourism also favours small- scale entrepreneurship – for example, curio- sellers, drink vendors
and renting bicycles – which, providing suitable micro- fi nance schemes and political support for capacity building exists, will afford opportunities for the poor to be involved in the tourism industry.
Despite evident advantages of the use of tourism for poverty reduction, a signifi -cant challenge to persuading government ministries and politicians to utilise tourism for poverty reduction relates to the accuracy and availability of data.
There are a number of issues of measurement that make the economic impact of tourism diffi cult to comprehend and diminish its possibility as an option for devel-opment and poverty reduction in the view of government ministers and other poli-ticians. Alongside the ongoing defi nitional problems of what actually constitutes the ‘tourism industry’, tourism is not a clearly identifi able sector of the economy in the international standard system of national accounts (SNA), implemented since 1993. Referring to economic activity generally in the tourism sector, Mitchell and Ashley (2010: 8) comment that: ‘activity in this sector is usually estimated simply by summing the economic subsectors of hotels, restaurants and transportation’. Alluding to the problems of collecting accurate data on employ-ment, the WTO (1998: 87) observe that:
the contribution of tourism to employment and tourism’s potential to generate new jobs ranks as one of the paramount questions related to the social and economic importance of tourism. However it is diffi cult to make accurate assessments of its volume and impact on the economy. Unfortunately reliable Figure 2.2 Tourism’s potential for poverty reduction
Opportunities for linkages to other The consumer (tourist) comes to the point of economic sectors in which the poor production for consumption - offering are active through the supply chain potential opportunities for the poor to sell stimulating demand and directly their goods and services
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Many rural areas of LDCs have a 'comparative advantage' in natural and cultural resources for tourism, where tourism can offer economic diversification
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empowerment Growth in international than agriculture opportunities for women tourism demand to
LDCs is high and domestic tourism is growing in many LDCs
and comparable data about tourism employment on the international level is very scarce.
The diffi culties of the collection of comparable data are partly a consequence of the disparate character of the tourism sector being composed of defi ned indus-tries; for example, the airline industry, hotel industry, attractions industry and tour operating industry. The use of various data collection methodologies by separate countries in an attempt to measure the same characteristics compounds this problem. These diffi culties are pointed out by the WTTC (2004: 6) which comments: ‘Over the last three decades, countries have estimated the economic impact of Travel and Tourism through a range of measures using a variety of different defi nitions and methodologies.’ A further challenge of measurement arises from the large informal tourism sector that characterises many developing countries and within which the poor are most likely to be involved. The numbers of people working in the informal tourism sector – for example, hawkers, handi-craft sellers and street vendors – is extremely diffi cult to estimate.
As a consequence of this lack of coherence, and a commonality in economic defi -nition and methods for data collection, the UNWTO has been working with the WTTC since the early 1990s to improve tourism statistics worldwide (ibid.). The common framework that is being developed is termed the ‘Travel and Tourism Satellite Account’, which lays out a comprehensive recommended methodolog-ical framework for the compilation of tourism statistics and the assessment of its economic importance in all countries, which should permit a more meaningful comparison of tourism’s role in different national economies in the future. Despite the problems of the accuracy of statistics and a lack of data about tourism’s impacts on poverty reduction, many LDCs have a comparative advantage in natural and cultural resources for tourism. A continuing global net loss of biodi-versity and a trend towards urbanisation (in 2011 over 50 per cent of the world’s population was living in urban areas for the fi rst time in human history) are indic-ative that in the future, as Mitchell and Ashley (2010) suggest, the value of these natural resources will increase in conjunction with their scarcity.
SUMMARY
•
Whilst specifi cally targeting poverty alleviation has become a part of global development policy since the 1990s, its relationship to development can be traced to the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. It was in this era that a strong association was made between economic progress, national development and political ideologies in a speech by US president Truman in 1949, who made a distinction between the ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped worlds’ based upon criteria of national income. From a Western- centric viewpoint there was an imperative to integrate the poor into the capitalist andmarket system, rather than allowing them to ally themselves with the commu-nist Soviet Union. This was a time when many ex- colonial countries were attaining their independence and both the USA and the Soviet Union were willing to lend large amounts of foreign aid in attempts to secure political allegiances. The association of underdeveloped countries with backwardness and poverty lent a powerful context for economic and political intervention by developed countries on the pretence of humanitarian grounds.
•
The separation of countries into categories of ‘developed’ and ‘underdevel-oped’ sets a standard for countries to develop to, illustrated in modernisation theory. In contrast, dependency theorists held that the rest of the world (i.e., the ‘periphery’) would not be permitted by dominant powers to develop like the West (i.e., the ‘core’) because it was in the interests of the core to ensure that these countries remained underdeveloped. The rationale of this thesis was to ensure that they did not develop to be economically competitive with the countries of Europe and America, and to ensure a regular supply of primary and raw materials for their industries. The lack of development in many parts of the world by the 1980s, despite billions of dollars of foreign aid, led to a rethink of the best way for developing countries to economically grow. The dominant paradigm became one of neo- liberalism that encouraged ‘free trade’, the rule of the market and minimum government interference in the func-tioning of the national economy. The need to repay foreign debts, especially after the end of the Cold War in 1989, necessitated that many developing countries had to accept Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) from the World Bank and IMF to ensure the continuance of their support. Amongst the conditions of SAPs were that governments boosted export- driven growth in goods and services with which they enjoyed a ‘comparative advantage’ to the rest of the world and reduced their expenditure, including on health and educa-tion programmes. The impact of this on the poor was to reduce the self- suffi ciency of agriculture as more land was used for cash crops for agriculture and to restrict opportunities for health care and education.
•
By the 1990s, the growing concerns over the detrimental effects of SAPs led to a ‘New Poverty Agenda’ in what is loosely and contentiously referred to as the ‘Post-Washington Consensus’. The World Bank and IMF replaced SAPs with Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) that emphasised more national ownership of development policy and a long- term perspective for poverty reduction. Alternative development strategies also came more to the fore that advocated participatory mechanisms for development at a more local level; for example, community- based tourism and recognition of envi-ronmental constraints on development. The concept of sustainable develop-ment, although ambiguous in its meaning and interpretation, became widely adopted by different stakeholders following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, includinginternational agencies, national governments, the private sector and non- governmental organisations. An emphasis on sustainable development combined with poverty reduction presents a political and economic challenge of how best to achieve this and whether neo- liberalism and free markets will be able to deliver on these goals. Following the global fi nancial crisis that began in 2008, there is a growing challenge to this paradigm, and calls for more government intervention in economic policy.
•
The linkage of tourism to poverty reduction has arisen for a variety of associ-ated reasons. The emphasis in neo- liberalism of the utilisation of a country’s economic comparative advantage gave a rationale for many developing countries to develop their tourism industries around their natural and cultural resources. If a global net loss on biodiversity continues into the future, then the scarcity value of natural resources and ecosystems is likely to increase their economic worth for tourism. The growth in international tourism to LDCs has been higher over the last decade than for other regions of the world, although the LDCs’ share of the world market remains comparatively small.An emergent middle class in many developing countries also offers opportu-nities for a growth in domestic tourism and the linking of domestic tourists to the informal tourism sector in which very many of the poor are employed.
The development of the tourism industry also offers other opportunities to the poor, including links to other parts of the supply chain and economic sectors in which they are economically active, including the agriculture and fi shing industries. The tourist also comes to the point of production for consumption of goods and services, offering the poor the opportunities to sell them directly.
Compared to other economic sectors, tourism has the potential to directly benefi t women, which is important for their empowerment and ability to play a full participatory role in society.