Tourism and poverty alleviation: an academic literature review

Abstract

Poverty and the growing economic and social differences between the developed countries and the least developed countries, has led international organizations such as United Nations and the World Bank to select poverty alleviation as a major international strategic objective. Furthermore, tourism has been recently chosen as an economic activity which offers great opportunities for any country, including the least developed countries. This emerging and growing interest by governments and professionals has also generated an extraordinary growth in the academic research on tourism and poverty alleviation. This study critically analyzes poverty and strategic actions that are currently implemented with a view to alleviate it, by paying special attention to tourism. In addition, 80 academic articles on tourism and poverty alleviation that have been published between 1999 and 2011 are analyzed, by conducting a meta-analysis. To be specific, the following aspects are measured and assessed: year of publication, geographical scope, quality of the publications, research areas, the type of research and the methodology that is applied.