Tourism and Income Distribution in East Africa

Research has highlighted the possibility that tourism expenditure in developing countries not only provides income for poor households, but also leads to contraction of other exporting industries. By highlighting the linkages between tourism-related industries and the rest of the economy, and through the distributional effects of their income flows, this paper examines the effects of tourism-related industries and other export industries on households in East Africa. Tourism-related industries are found to provide substantially less income for poorer households than other export activities, leading to concern that tourism expansion may be detrimental for poverty alleviation in these countries. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.