The Tourism Programme offers a specific sector approach to addressing one broad aim of much of ODI's work: how to close the gap between poverty and economic growth. For the past decade, the Tourism Programme has been seeking answers to two fundamental questions:
- How does tourism affect the poor?
- How can tourism development be changed to increase net benefits to poor people ?
We aim to do this by informing and inspiring policies and practice to enable the private, public and non-governmental sectors to work together more effectively.
What we work on
Our researchers work with a range of stakeholders over a wide geographical focus to develop a detailed understanding of tourism's role in poverty alleviation and development and of how to bring benefits to local people in tourism destination areas.
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 The economic impacts of tourism on the poor can be broadly categorised as occurring through three pathways: direct impacts; indirect impacts; and dynamic impacts.
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 We are developing an understanding of how small-scale entrepreneurs, established businesses and public sector policy-makers can strengthen pro-poor impacts, and how markets in tourism can be made more accessible for the poor.
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 We can show the benefits to the poor, however, we also need to deliver responses and policy advice on the trade-off between benefits and other negative impacts – such as climate change and environmental degradation at the destination.
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 From coining the term ‘pro-poor tourism’, with partners, in 1999, to today’s advocacy of a value chain approach to tourism as a way to scale up impacts, we have sought to test assumptions and improve thinking and action.
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How we work
Over the last ten years, the ODI Tourism Programme has developed a set of rigorous research methods to assess the economic benefits of tourism, and in particular how tourism affects the poor and how tourism development can be influenced to increase net benefits to the poor.
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 We have developed a unique approach to assessing the impact of tourism on local communities, based on pro-poor value chain analysis.
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 We use a set of tools to analyse the competitiveness of the tourism sector in a destination, looking inparticular at competitive advantages, comparative advantages and economic linkages.
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 We have evaluated programmes of support to tourism for a range for organisations from multi-laterals to non-governmental agencies.
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 We look at how the financial benefits of tourism for economies in transition need to be conceived as part of a trade-off with non-financial issues.
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 In addition to disseminating the end results of our analysis, we focus considerable efforts on sharing our approach more systematically.
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About the programme
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Related links
On the ODI website
On the internet
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