Tourism And Poverty

Introduction

Tourism is often linked as a tool in poverty alleviation. Indeed, the World Tourism Organization (WTO), a tourism-expert division of the United Nations, has assumed along with other international agencies and national governments, that tourism plays a significant role in eradicating poverty which goes in line in achieving United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (Unwto.org, n.d.). Tourism is considered as people-oriented industry and as the fastest growing industry. In fact in 2013, around 52 million more tourists have travelled than in 2012 (Unwto.org, 2014). This growth will oblige social, economic developments such as jobs creations, creation of wealth and other opportunities to revitalise an economy.

However while tourism

The question to that is to understand firstly the characteristics of tourism and poverty. UNWTO has long associated tourism as an important tool to eliminate poverty. The specialized agency highlighted the importance of tourism because in many countries, especially developing ones, tourism is major source of job creation and foreign exchange earnings (Unwto.org, 2014). In regards to poverty, this unwilling phenomenon can be characterized into different definitions such as income-based, capability, and multi-dimensional (Misturelli and Heffernan, 2008). In other words, they envelop the aspects of low incomes, unfavourable environment, poor education and vulnerability (Cirera, McCulloch and Winters, 2001). Successful poverty alleviation through tourism depends on its impacts on the social and economic environment of the

Felix Naschold explained that income distribution is an important tool in eradicating poverty. He claimed that this could be effective if income distribution is more equally distributed to the poor households (Naschold, 2002). Araar and Duclos also approved that poverty and income inequality are linked through. Their findings showed that over time, income and equality elasticity would change as income distribution changes (Araar & Duclos, 2007). In Brazil, the government has implemented a cash transfer program called Bolsa Família (formerly Bolsa Escola). This social welfare program has been developed to lift the population from poverty through direct income transfer and reinforcement of social rights (e.g. education, health) (Social-protection.org, 2014). Through the direct distribution of income to the poor households, this has helped to reduce extreme poverty and as well income inequality (Soares, Soares, Medeiros & Osório, 2006). This was also supported by the studies of Martins-Bekat and Kulkarni (Matins-Bekat & Kulkarni, n.d.). In fact, since its implementation in 2004, poverty rate has been reduced from 42.7% to 28.8& while inequality rate has been reduced by 17% within five years of activity (Financial Times,