Tourism and Poverty Reduction - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 133

The UNWTO website lists 101 ST-EP projects which were initiated
between 2006 and the end of 2011, just over half of them in African coun-
tries. Analysis of the projects reveals that most are either (a) associated with
protected areas and ecotourism or (b) community-based tourism ventures
focused on a particular locality. 2 These include a handicraft project in
Ethiopia, a footbridge project in Kenya, and improving local guiding services
in Bolivia. There are also a number of interesting regional initiatives funded,
such as developing regional tourism routes or trails that take in a number of
attractions, and marketing a region as a destination. For example, in May
2009 the ST-EP programme presented a marketing strategy to stakeholders
in eight African countries regarding multi-destination circuits. There appear
to be few initiatives to connect local food producers with mainstream tour-
ism enterprises, which has been identified in the PPT literature as an area of
great potential.
While the ST-EP Foundation funded many of the 101 projects noted
above, it is unclear whether the foundation has maintained its emphasis on
harnessing the development power of tourism in order to fight poverty.
While there are recent press releases from the foundation pertaining to
achievement of the MDGs and discussions on tourism at Rio

20, many of
their press releases in 2012 drew attention to activities which had limited
connection to the idea of sustainable tourism that eliminates poverty (see
www.unwtostep.org/). For example, several news items related to prepara-
tions for the 10th World Symposium on Choral Music, to be held in Seoul in
2014: the Chairperson of the ST-EP Foundation happens to be a member of
the Board of Directors for the International Federation of Choral Music.
Other items focused on the 2018 Winter Olympics to be hosted in the Korean
city of PyeongChang. Something more specifically associated with poverty
alleviation was the Thank You Small Library initiative which the chairper-
son had been supporting in a number of African countries. While clearly an
education initiative which could benefit people without access to topics in
poorer communities, there was no direct link to tourism and it was unclear
why this was ever initiated as a ST-EP project.
In 2009, the Secretary General of the UNWTO, Taleb Rifai, was inter-
viewed about his views on what the UNWTO had achieved and what direc-
tion it should take in the future. Commenting specifically on ST-EP, he
stated that their achievements had been mainly in increasing awareness
globally about the potential of tourism to contribute to poverty alleviation,
while admitting that the organisation may not have made much of a tangible
contribution to alleviating poverty (eTurboNews, 2009). While a wide range
of good projects have been implemented through ST-EP, they do not address
some changes at national and global levels which could also be of great sig-
nificance. For example, it is relatively straightforward for donors to support
communities in developing their own tourism enterprises. However, it is
more difficult and controversial to endorse labour rights for all tourism sector

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