Tourism and Poverty Reduction - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 125

firmly believed that it was important to bring about changes in mainstream
tourism, including challenging corporates to change the way they operate,
rather than, for example, to establish numerous community run bungalow
ventures with dubious business prospects. Proponents of PPT want to
'. . .“mainstream” pro-poor tourism so that it is a business approach across the
industry, rather than a niche market' (Ashley & Ashton, 2006: 3). They sug-
gest that to achieve poverty alleviation, it is more constructive to work
through large-scale, mainstream tourism businesses than small-scale and
well-intentioned alternative operations.
It has been suggested that a wide range of stakeholders, from local entre-
preneurs to government officials and international tour companies, will need
to make concerted efforts if poverty reduction is to occur:
Pro-Poor Tourism is about changing the distribution of benefits from
tourism in favour of poor people. It is not a specific product. It is not the
same as ecotourism or community-based tourism, nor is it limited to
these niches. Any kind of tourism can be made pro-poor. PPT can be
applied at different levels, at the enterprise, destination or country level.
(Pro-Poor Tourism Partnership, 2005b: 1)
The Promise of PPT
Tourism has been identified as a promising economic sector through which
to develop poverty alleviation strategies thanks to some persuasive statistics.
Developing countries now have a market share of 40% of worldwide interna-
tional tourism arrivals, up from 34% in 2000 (UNWTO, 2007: 4). For over 50
of the world's poorest countries, tourism is one of the top three contributors to
economic development (UNWTO, 2000, cited in Sofield, 2003: 350). Further-
more, it is suggested that the approximately $68 billion given in aid annually
pales in significance compared with revenues of around $153 billion from
tourism (Ashley & Mitchell, 2005, cited in Christie & Sharma, 2008: 428).
Tourism is purported to provide a number of distinct pro-poor benefits
(Table 4.1). First, tourism can bring 'economic benefits' which contribute to
the well-being of the poor directly through the generation of jobs - the tour-
ism industry in 2009 employed over 235 million people world wide (8.2% of
all jobs) (WTTC, 2010: 7), a figure that reached 266 million in 2013 (8.8% of
world employment) (WTTC, 2013). It also stimulates the provision of
income-earning opportunities for many others who provide goods and ser-
vices to the industry, and brings economic benefits through collective com-
munity income such as lease money paid by resorts based on communal land
or a share of gate takings at a national park going directly to a resident com-
munity. Second, by enhancing local livelihood options, tourism can enable
some rural communities to thrive rather than undergoing serious decline due