Overseas Development Institute - Theme: Tourism

ODI Publications - Opinion - A misguided quest: Community-based tourism in Latin America

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:00:00 PDT

Tourism can help reduce poverty in Latin America, but community-based tourism is not the answer. Instead, communities should be helped to access mainstream tourism markets.

ODI Publications - Working Paper - Doing the right thing approximately not the wrong thing precisely: Challenges of monitoring impacts of pro-poor interventions in tourism value chains

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:00:00 PDT

Approaches to tourism intervention are changing. Organisations that have been investing in pro-poor tourism, or community tourism, have found that their efforts remain in a niche and are too marginal in denting poverty levels. Others operating in mainstream tourism are realising that growth in arrivals is not all that counts â more has to be done to deliver impact for the poor from the growth of mainstream tourism. The focus today is on scaling up the contribution that tourism can make to poverty reduction. Amid disappointing and piecemeal data on the impact of pro-poor tourism initiatives to date, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV), the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), and other organisations are addressing the challenging question of how to scale up impacts of tourism (and their interventions) on poor people. They are increasingly adopting a 'value chain' (VC) approach, seeking to intervene at key points in the tourism value chain that can significantly expand income and opportunities for the poor, while working effectively within a highly commercial and sophisticated service sector.

ODI Publications - Opinion - Stepping up the ladder: how business can help achieve the MDGs

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:00:00 PDT

Business and development is the topic to watch and work on in 2008, as businesses respond to sustained pressure to contribute to the MDGs. This Opinion outlines the three -- possibly four -- steps to effective engagement of the private sector in efforts to reach the MDGs. First: business engagement int he community. Second: taking corporate social responsibility into the heart of companies. Third: businesses working through every aspect of their activity to see whether development impact can be improved. An emerging fourth step is involving business in global public policy. Business interests do not always coincide with social interests. But interests do not have to be perfectly aligned for a productive partnership to develop. Opportunities must be seized to build new kinds of relationships with the private sector.

ODI Publications - Opinion - Mitigating climate change: what impact on the poor?

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:00:00 PDT

The impact of climate change is of vital importance. But, for the worldâs poor, policies to mitigate climate change may, in the short term, have as much impact as climate change itself. This Opinion assesses four mitigation strategies and their possible impacts on the poor: environmental labelling; green growth strategies; biofuel production and food prices; and forest protection. It focuses on sub-Saharan Africa.

ODI Publications - Working Paper - The Gambia tourism value chain and prospects for pro-poor tourism

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:00:00 PDT

This study examines the current state of tourism in The Gambia, West Africa, and proposes a series of practical measures to enhance the flow of benefits to the poor. It is based on a framework of international 'best practice' for boosting benefits for the poor, combined with innovative local economic analysis that maps the current flows of benefits to a range of stakeholders from the tourism value chain in The Gambia.

ODI on... The World Economic Forum in Davos, 2008

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:39:56 PST

ODI staff have prepared videos for YouTube's 'The Davos Question', offering their views on how forum participants could make the world a better place in 2008.

ODI Audiovisual - Video blog - The Davos Question: Fight poverty by going on holiday in a developing country

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:00:00 PST

Pam Muckosy, of the Overseas Development Institute, offers her answer to the Davos Question, discussing how individuals can help to make poor people in developing countries through tourism.

Video:

Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative Report - The Role of the Tourism Sector in Expanding Economic Opportunity

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:00:00 PST

This report examines how tourism companies can enhance their contribution to economic opportunity in developing countries. It argues that the potential for action is substantial. While tourism overall may be lagging other sectors in corporate social responsibility, it is experiencing a time of rapid experimentation and change, with some proven strategies and business returns. Indeed, the case studies that exist suggest that there are additional business motivations for action in tourism, relative to other industries, due to the nature of the product. Because customers physically go to the place of production, they encounter suppliers, employees, and communities as part of their vacation experiences. Tourism products and customersâ experiences can be enhanced by combining commercial practice and local investment.

Project - Strategic Review of the tourism work of the Export-led Poverty Reduction Programme (EPRP) of the UN's International Trade Centre

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 07:27:46 PDT

ODI has been requested by the International Trade Centre (a UN agency created by the WTO and UNCTAD) to undertake a strategic review of the tourism component of the Export-led Poverty Reduction Programme (EPR).

Journal article - Holiday package tourism and the poor in the Gambia

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:07:55 PDT

This paper analyses the tourism value chain in order to understand and encourage pro-poor growth of the tourist sector in The Gambia . The central finding is that about 14 per cent of the Gambian part of the chain flows directly into the hands of poor people â a much larger pro-poor outcome than the authors expected. This is due to well-developed local linkages in the destination country that allow poor people to access tourist discretionary expenditure â supported by concerted action from civil society and donor organisations. Pathways from tourism to the poor are, in descending order of importance, craft markets, the food supply chain, non-managerial staff in hotels, excursion guides, and taxis. To increase the benefits from tourism to the poor, the paper recommends increasing both the size of the slice that accrues to them and the size of the tourist cake itself.

Report - Participatory Tourism Value Chain Analysis in Da Nang, Central Vietnam

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:07:34 PDT

This report describes an innovative approach to tourist development â a participatory pro-poor value chain analysis - that was supported by local
stakeholders and funded by the Vietnam Private Sector Support Programme. This is probably the first truly participatory tourism value chain exercise ever conducted. Because this exercise was, in many ways, a voyage of discovery, the Report seeks to capture the essential elements of the process â as well as present the findings of the exercise.

Article in TravelMole - Fight Poverty on a Sun Bed says ODI Tourism Director

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 17:00:01 PDT

'The idea of using tourism to reduce poverty in developing countries is at a critical point. Important changes amongst tourists and mainstream tour operators are increasingly offering enticing prospects for hoteliers that increase the sustainability of their operations at the destination. People in the development industry are also getting excited about tourism because, belatedly, there is a growing recognition that in a surprising number of poor countries tourism may be the most effective tool to accelerate economic development.'

ODI Project Papers - Report - Participatory Tourism Value Chain Analysis in Da Nang, Central Vietnam

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 17:00:00 PDT

This report describes an innovative approach to tourist development â a participatory pro-poor value chain analysis - that was supported by local stakeholders and funded by the Vietnam Private Sector Support Programme. This is probably the first truly participatory tourism value chain exercise ever conducted. Because this exercise was, in many ways, a voyage of discovery, the Report seeks to capture the essential elements of the process â as well as present the findings of the exercise.

Article in Development Southern Africa - Holiday package tourism and the poor in the Gambia

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 17:00:00 PDT

This paper analyses the tourism value chain in order to understand and encourage pro-poor growth of the tourist sector in The Gambia. The central finding is that about 14 per cent of the Gambian part of the chain flows directly into the hands of poor people â a much larger pro-poor outcome than the authors expected. This is due to well-developed local linkages in the destination country that allow poor people to access tourist discretionary expenditure â supported by concerted action from civil society and donor organisations. Pathways from tourism to the poor are, in descending order of importance, craft markets, the food supply chain, non-managerial staff in hotels, excursion guides, and taxis. To increase the benefits from tourism to the poor, the paper recommends increasing both the size of the slice that accrues to them and the size of the tourist cake itself.

Blog - How do we mainstream pro-poor tourism?

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:34:05 PDT

Mainstreaming pro-poor tourism is a bold aim, and the subject of a recent event, organised by the ODI Tourism Programme on Friday 15 June. This aimed to find new and better ways to assess the current reality and future potential for tourism to benefit the poor in developing countries and to change reality through influencing the operating practices of the mainstream tourist industry as a sharper force for good...

ODI Online - Blog - How do we mainstream pro-poor tourism?

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:23:00 PDT

Mainstreaming pro-poor tourism is a bold aim, and the subject of a recent event, organised by the ODI Tourism Programme on Friday 15 June. For this event, ‘mainstreaming’ had a double-meaning, being about:

Finding new and better ways to assess the current reality and future potential for tourism to benefit the poor in developing countries and
Being a...

ODI Publications - Briefing Paper - Can tourism offer pro-poor pathways to prosperity?

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 17:00:00 PDT

This Briefing Paper summarises key findings from a comprehensive review of literature on the impacts that tourism has on poverty. Findings from many disciplines and destinations build a more comprehensive, though still piecemeal, picture than existed before. Tourism can have important pro-poor impacts and these can be strengthened by deliberate public policy interventions. Tourism can affect the poor via three, quite different pathways. But there is not a single destination where poverty impact has been assessed in terms of all three.

Event - Pathways to Prosperity? Mainstreaming pro-poor approaches in tourism

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 03:00:01 PDT

Over the past year, the ODI Tourism Programme â together with like-minded donor agencies, NGOs and other organisations â has been exploring a new and innovative way of understanding the links between tourism and poor people. The event brings together people from the North and South who are aiming to make tourism work for the poor to discuss this approach. Participants include leading donors, development practitioners, private sector operators, non-governmental organisations and researchers.

ODI Publications - Briefing Paper - Assessing how tourism revenues reach the poor

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:00:00 PDT

This Briefing Paper summarises findings from recent analyses of tourism value chaines from a pro-poor perspective. It illustrates that diagnostic tools such as local economic mapping and value chain analysis can be usefully applied to service sectors, and to explicitly assist in identifying poverty-targeted interventions, not just value chain competitiveness. Findings from recent studies indicate that the share of destination level revenue accruing to the poor varies widely according to context, ranging from as low as 5% to over 25%.

ODI Publications - Opinion - 'Leakage' claims: muddled thinking and bad for policy?

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:00:00 PDT

'"Leakage" pessimists do us a disservice. The analysis uses muddled thinking and poor arithmetic to generate the wrong answer to an inappropriate policy question. The exaggerated claims divert attention from an important challenge at hand â boosting the linkages between tourism and the rest of the local economy.'

Briefing Paper - Can tourism offer pro-poor pathways to prosperity?

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 05:38:52 PDT

Examining evidence on the impact of tourism on poverty.

Key points:
- Recent empirical studies suggest that, in the best cases, between a fifth and
one-third of total tourist turnover in the destination is captured by the âpoorâ.
- Tourism can have important pro-poor impacts and these can be strengthened by deliberate public policy interventions.
- Tourism can affect the poor via three, quite different pathways. But there is not a single destination where poverty impact has been assessed in terms of all three.

Briefing Paper - Assessing how tourism revenues reach the poor

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 10:01:02 PDT

Findings from the application of innovative diagnostic tools offer new ways to understand and boost revenues from tourism for the poor.

Key points:
- Diagnostic tools applied to product value chains can usefully be applied to the service sector.
- Value chain analysis can be adapted to address poverty, as well as business, prerogatives.
- These tools can describe how value is distributed along the tourism value chain, but also provide a robust empirical basis for making changes to it.

New Opinion paper by Caroline Ashley and Harold Goodwin - 'Pro poor tourism': whatâs gone right and whatâs gone wrong?

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 09:47:23 PDT

âRecent poverty reduction strategies increasingly highlight tourism, and new tourism policies contain commitments to harness tourism for poverty reduction â not just to generate foreign exchange... Tourism practitioners need to respond to this new opportunity with robust approaches and proven results.â

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 17:00:00 PDT

'Las recientes estrategias para la reducciÃ³n de la pobreza destacan cada vez mÃ¡s el turismo, y las nuevas polÃticas de turismo incluyen compromisos para aprovechar el turismo en la reducciÃ³n de la pobreza â no sÃ³lo para generar divisas... Los profesionales de turismo necesitan responder a esta nueva oportunidad, con enfoques robustos y resultados comprobados.'

ODI Publications - Opinion - 'Pro poor tourism': What's gone right and whatâs gone wrong?

Thu, 31 May 2007 17:00:00 PDT

'Recent poverty reduction strategies increasingly highlight tourism, and new tourism policies contain commitments to harness tourism for poverty reduction â not just to generate foreign exchange... Tourism practitioners need to respond to this new opportunity with robust approaches and proven results.'