Pro Poor Tourism

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What is pro-poor tourism?

Pro-Poor Tourism (PPT) is tourism that results in increased net benefits for poor people. PPT is not a specific product or niche sector but an approach to tourism development and management. It enhances the linkages between tourism businesses and poor people, so that tourism's contribution to poverty reduction is increased and poor people are able to participate more effectively in product development. Links with many different types of 'the poor' need to be considered: staff, neighbouring communities, land-holders, producers of food, fuel and other suppliers, operators of micro tourism businesses, craft-makers, other users of tourism infrastructure (roads) and resources (water) etc. There are many types of pro poor tourism strategies, ranging from increasing local employment to building mechanisms for consultation. Any type of company can be involved in pro-poor tourism - a small lodge, an urban hotel, a tour operator, an infrastructure developer. The critical factor is not the type of company or the type of tourism, but that an increase in the net benefits that go to poor people can be demonstrated.

Overview of Pro-Poor Tourism Strategies

Strategies for pro poor tourism can be divided into those that generated three different types of local benefit: economic benefits, other livelihood benefits (such as physical, social or cultural improvements), and less tangible benefits of participation and involvement. Each of these can be further disaggregated into specific types of strategies.

Strategies focused on economic benefits include:

Expansion of employment and local wages: via commitments to local jobs, training up locals for employment Expansion of business opportunities for the poor. These may be businesses/entrepreneurs that sell inputs such as food, fuel, or building materials to tourism operations. Or they may be businesses that offer products directly to tourists, such as guiding, crafts, tea shops etc. Support can vary from marketing and technical support (e.g. by nearby mainstream operators), to shifts in procurement strategy, or direct financial and training inputs.

Development of collective community income. This may be from equity dividends, lease fee, revenue share, or donations, usually established in partnership with tourism operators or government institutions.

In general, staff wages are a massive boost to those few that get them, small earnings help many more to make ends meet, and collective income can benefit the majority, but can often be misused. Thus all three types are important for reaching different poor families. Strategies to create these benefits need to tackle many obstacles to economic participation, including lack of skills, low understanding of tourism, poor product quality and limited market access.

Strategies to enhance other (non-cash) livelihood benefits generally focus on:

Capacity building, training and empowerment Mitigation of the environmental impact of tourism on the poor and management of competing demands for access to natural resources between tourism and local people Address competing use of natural resources Improved social and cultural impacts of tourism Improved access to services and infrastructure: health care, radio access, security, water supplies, transport. Such strategies can often begin by reducing negative impacts – such as cultural intrusion, or lost access to land or coast. But more can be done to then address these issues positively, in consultation with the poor. Opportunities to increase local access to services and infrastructure often arise when these are being developed for the needs of tourists, but with some consultation and adaptation could also serve the needs of residents. Strategies for capacity-building may be directly linked to creating boosting cash income, but may also be of more long-term indirect value, such as building management capacity of local institutions.

Strategies focused on policy, process, and participation can create:

More supportive policy and planning framework that enables participation by the poor Increased participation by the poor in decision-making: i.e. ensuring that local people are consulted and have a say in tourism decision making by government and the private sector Pro-poor partnerships with the private sector

At the minimum: increased flow of information and communication: meetings, report backs, sharing news and plans. This is not participation but lays the basis for further dialogue. Implementing these strategies may involve lobbying for policy reform, involving the poor in local planning initiatives, amplifying their voice through producer associations, and developing formal and informal links between the poor and private operators.

Summary of findings on pro-poor tourism strategies

An overview of PPT strategies: what, who, how? A wide range of actions are needed to increase benefits to the poor from tourism. These go well beyond simply promoting community tourism - although work at the grass-roots level to develop enterprises and local capacity is one key component. Efforts are also needed on marketing, employment opportunities, linkages with the established private sector, policy and regulation, and participation in decision-making. This involves working across levels and stakeholders.

The focus and scale of PPT interventions vary enormously: from one private enterprise seeking to expand economic opportunities for poor neighbours, to a national programme enhancing participation by the poor at all levels. Strategies can be broadly grouped into three types: expanding economic benefits for the poor; addressing non-economic impacts; and developing pro-poor policies/processes/partnerships.

Impacts on the poor

Emerging though limited indications of the impacts of the current PPT initiatives suggest that for the poor, where it happens, PPT interventions are invaluable. A few are lifted out of income-poverty while many more earn critical gap-fillers. More still are affected by the non-financial livelihood benefits that emerge as very significant though highly varied, such as improved access to information and infrastructure, pride and cultural reinforcement. While some initiatives are yet to deliver on the ground, there are a few that affect hundreds directly and thousands indirectly. Key factors

Several critical factors constrain or facilitate progress in PPT, and need to be addressed. These are:

1. Access of the poor to the market: physical location, economic elites, social constraints on poor producers 2. Commercial viability: product quality and price, marketing, strength of the broader destination 3. Policy framework: land tenure, regulatory context, planning process, government attitude and capacity 4. Implementation challenges in the local context: filling the skills gap, managing costs and expectations, maximising collaboration across stakeholders.

Lessons on good practice emerge PPT is relatively untried and untested, and there is no blueprint. Nevertheless the case studies reveal a number of common lessons:

1. PPT needs a diversity of actions, from micro to macro level, including product development, marketing, planning, policy, and investment. It goes well beyond community tourism.

2. A driving force for PPT is useful, but other stakeholders, with broader mandates, are critical. PPT can be incorporated into tourism development strategies of government or business (with or without explicit pro-poor language). Broader policy frameworks and initiatives outside tourism, such as on land tenure, small enterprise and representative government, are also key.

3. Location matters: PPT works best where the wider destination is developing well.

4. The poverty impact may be greater in remote areas, though tourism itself may be on a limited scale.

5. PPT strategies often involve the development of new products, particularly based on local culture. But these should be integrated with mainstream products if they are to find markets.

6. Ensuring commercial viability is a priority. This requires close attention to demand, product quality, marketing, investment in business skills, and inclusion of the private sector.

7. Economic measures should expand both regular jobs and casual earning opportunities, while tackling both demand (e.g. markets) and supply (e.g. products of the poor).

8. Non-financial benefits (e.g. increased participation, access to assets) can reduce vulnerability; more could be done to address these.

9. PPT is a long-term investment. Expectations must be managed and short-term benefits developed in the interim.

10. External funding may be required and justified to cover the substantial transaction costs of establishing partnerships, developing skills, and revising policies (not generally for direct subsidies to enterprises).

Implications for stakeholders Government, the private sector, non-governmental organisations, community organisations and the poor themselves all have critical and very different roles to play in PPT. The private sector can be directly involved in pro-poor partnerships. At a minimum, private operators should participate in product and market development to ensure commercial realism. There is much that only governments can do, so a leading role for government in PPT is a great advantage. At a minimum, there needs to be a policy environment that facilitates PPT. The poor themselves are critical to PPT, but they often also need to be organised at the community level in order to engage effectively in tourism. It is often invaluable to have a fourth party to catalyse and support PPT efforts of others - this is often, though not always, a role for a non-governmental organisation. Donors, through their role in supporting tourism plans, and the 'sustainable tourism' agenda, can also promote PPT.

Relevance to poverty reduction Poverty reduction through PPT can be significant at a local or district level. PPT strategies do appear able to 'tilt' the industry, at the margin, to expand opportunities for the poor and have potentially wide application across the industry. However, they have made little dent in national aggregates so far, because initiatives are small-scale, site-specific, or at early stages of implementation. National impacts would require a shift across the sector, and will vary with location and the relative size of tourism. Nevertheless, if opportunities for the poor could be opened up in all the places where tourism is significant in the South, it would affect millions of the poor.

Cost-effectiveness The cost-effectiveness of PPT is difficult to judge: current initiatives have had to learn by doing and have cost a great deal to implement. However, if future local incomes, non-financial benefits, and pro-poor poor policy changes were valued, a cost-benefit approach would probably show a positive return. Sharing experience should reduce costs of spreading PPT approaches.

Promoting PPT Extending lessons from early experience across the industry would be a challenge - with considerable potential return- involving different constituencies:

Those involved in tourism - policy makers, planners, businesses, consultants - should incorporate pro-poor concerns at all levels. Those involved in the wider field of poverty reduction or rural development should explore and exploit the comparative potential of tourism where they are working. PPT can make good business sense, especially if it gives consumers more choice. Corporate engagement should be based on commercial opportunity not just ethical appeal. The `sustainable tourism' agenda should be harnessed for poverty reduction. This requires a shift in focus from environment to poverty and from Northern to Southern destinations. As guidance or standards on social issues are often weak with sustainable tourism initiatives, practical lessons from PPT should be incorporated.