The role of tourism in poverty reduction: an empirical assessment

This paper assesses how tourism affects absolute poverty beyond its effects on growth in two developing countries. In particular, the author explores whether tourism spending leads to a decline in the proportion of people helms the poverty line. An error correction model is applied to estimate the relationship between poverty and tourism spending. The results reveal that tourism does matter for the poor, but that it does not appear to have systematic effects, and that tourism development matters most for the poor at the lower levels of economic development. The findings from the two developing country case studies show differing impacts of tourism development, and thus the policy implications differ for each case.