poverty tourism bad

The Pros And Cons Of Slum Tourism: Crass Voyeurism Or Enlightened Travel?

Let me begin by saying I  have  engaged in slum tourism (a basic definition of slum tourism would be the kind of tourism that takes you to see impoverished communities).

I took  an African slum Soweto tour  during a long-ago visit to South Africa, to see a place that overflowed with meaning. In 1976, during the Soweto Uprising in which unarmed students were stormed and killed by police for refusing to study in Afrikaans, I was a university student in Political Science, engulfed (at a distance) in liberation movements and revolutions. Soweto was part of that, as well as a major chapter in the bigger  South African story of apartheid  and discrimination.

It was a place I wanted to see, but the then  boycott  of South Africa was in full swing and I would have to wait nearly two decades.

Years later as a journalist, I was escorted through some of the most  crowded favelas  in Rio by a young community nurse who worked with drug addicts and knew everyone. He was respected and we were stopped on every corner for a bit of a chat.

The afternoon I spent in Rocinha gave me  a slightly better understanding of the poverty  that fuels much of the addiction and crime, something I certainly would not have learned from the back of a bus.

It also showed me a side that surprised me – the  regular everyday life  of people less fortunate than myself. The streets were dirty and the housing rickety but people came and went, shopped, talked, laughed – and went to work, determined to make things better.

Oddly enough, at least to me,  not everyone was poor . Walking around highlighted differing characteristics of slums. Some dwellings were decidedly middle-class, because here as everywhere else, when people succeed they don’t necessarily want to leave their friends and family. 

Over the years, visits to  poorer urban and slum areas  have left me unsettled. Children sniffing glue under a bridge in Brasilia. Mothers scavenging on the world’s biggest scrap heap in Manila. Begging for food near a Nairobi slum. Homeless children in Malawi.

These are scenes that drive home the accident of humanity, of where I happened to be born, of my race and privilege, and how easily it might have been otherwise.

On the one hand, it showed me what is life like in a slum, but on the other, it left me unsure of whether I was engaging in ethical tourism.

So was slum tourism positive or detrimental, and does it hurt or help a slum economy?  it still begs to question; “Is slum tourism good or bad?” 

WHAT IS A SLUM? AND WHAT IS SLUM TOURISM?

SLUM DEFINITION

•  noun: 1 –  a squalid and overcrowded urban area inhabited by very poor people.  2 –  a house or building unfit for human habitation.

•  verb:  ( slummed ,  slumming ) (often  slum it)  informal voluntarily spend time in uncomfortable conditions or at a lower social level than one’s own.

Source: Compact Oxford English dictionary

Slum tourism has been around  since Victorian times , when wealthy Londoners trudged down to the East End for a view. The end of apartheid in South Africa fueled a more politically-oriented type of ‘township tour’ while Rocinha has been receiving tourists for years – some 50,000 a year now.

In India, the release of the movie  Slumdog Millionnaire  created space for even more slums of India tours. In Nairobi, enterprising Kenyans are guiding tourists on Kibera slum tours, one of the better-known urban slums (and one of the world’s bigger slum areas) with a population of one million inhabitants.

The  voyeur aspect  of slum tourism makes me intensely uneasy.

Imagine a busload of foreign visitors traipsing down your street, peering into your house, taking a selfie in front of your door… Yet that’s exactly what happens on some township tourism slum tours, often labeled poverty tourism, pity tours, ghetto tourism, reality tours or even poorism – there is no dearth of labels.

So is  slum tourism  ethically acceptable or is it exploitative? What are the advantages and disadvantages of slum tourism? Do our tourist dollars actually help these communities or are we simply paying for a peek into lives we have no intention of ever experiencing for more than a few minutes? What are the impacts of slum development?

SLUM TOURISM PROS AND CONS

Negatives of slum tourism: exploitation and voyeurism.

Why slum tourism is bad (or can be):organized slum visits have come under  harsh criticism , particularly as they become more popular.

Much of the criticism revolves around these slum tourism cons:

• Slum tours treat people like  animals in a zoo  – you stare from the outside but don’t dare get too close.
• Visitors aren’t interested in meaningful interaction; they just want their  photo op . Contact with locals is minimal.
• Money rarely trickles down. Instead,  operators fill their pockets  but the vaunted ‘benefits to the community’ don’t materialize. Slum tourism profits from poverty, which is why it is often called “poverty tourism”.
• People feel degraded  by being stared at doing mundane things – washing, cleaning up, preparing food, things that are private. Their rights to privacy may be violated. Imagine yourself at the receiving end: how would you feel?
• Even when they participate as hosts, local people are often  underpaid and exploited .
• The  image of a country  may be tarnished by publicizing slums (this is an actual concern among certain segments of certain populations – usually the more wealthy).
• The  tours make poverty exotic , otherworldly, almost glamorizing what to inhabitants is a harsh reality which will remain once the tourists are long gone, which is one of the main slum tourism disadvantages.

How true is this picture?

UN-HABITAT  defines a slum household as a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following: 1. Durable housing of a permanent nature that protects against extreme climate conditions. 2. Sufficient living space which means not more than three people sharing the same room. 3. Easy access to safe water in sufficient amounts at an affordable price. 4. Access to adequate sanitation in the form of a private or public toilet shared by a reasonable number of people. 5. Security of tenure that prevents forced evictions.

Slum tourism benefits: improving local lives

So are there slum tourism advantages? There may be a flip side. Slum tourism has supporters, many of whom believe  tourism will ultimately benefit  the favela or the township and help improve the lives of people who live there.

Visitors who take these tours may  genuinely care  and are interested in knowing more about the people they meet and the places they see.

Here are some of the potential benefits of slum tourism:

• Even if it’s only a little,  some money does enter the community , whether through meals at home or the purchase of art or souvenirs. Many say this tourism boosts the local economy. This trickle-down economy is bound to be better for local residents than picking trash off a stinking garbage heap.
• The tours  change our perceptions of poverty  by putting a face to it and showing visitors that however poor, people are the same everywhere and share similar thoughts and emotions.
• Tourists will visit areas they would never go to otherwise.
• Some operators have made sure part of their profits are recycled into local hands, for example by  starting local charities .
• A spotlight on poor areas by foreigners may help governments move more quickly to  improve conditions by using tourism as an economic developement tool.
• Even in the poorest areas  development and innovation  can take place: slum tours can showcase the economic and cultural energies of a neighborhood.
• They can  improve our understanding  of poverty and of one another – and of the world at large.
• Local people may support them. Locally-run  slum tourism examples  include Zezinho da Rocinha’s own favela tour (a slum-dweller himself, see below what he has to say on the effects of tourism in his community).
• They can  bring us closer  and demystify and  debunk some of our stereotypes . This excellent video (below) by one of my favorite authors, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, highlights the dangers of what she calls a ‘single story’, or what happens when a single point of view is hammered home, in this case, the ‘single story’ of poverty and pity.

THE SLUM TOURISM DEBATE: SO, IS IT A GOOD THING OR A BAD THING?

There is no such thing as a star system for slum tours, an ethical rating that will tell you how well an operator is performing or what the real economic benefits of tourism in the community really are. So, it’s up to us to find out before booking.

Here are some of the things we should look for:

• Size matters . A huge tour rumbling through a neighborhood in an air-conditioned bus is probably not going to promote much interchange with local residents.  Ask how many people will be on your tour.
• Look at the highlights and figure  how long you’ll be  in each place. If you’re expected to eat in a home, visit a local shebeen and walk through several streets in the space of an hour, chances are you won’t be getting to know your hosts in any significant way. Visitors need and have asked for more time for real exchanges with local people, as real as such unequal exchanges can be.  Make sure you have enough time to interact.
• Explore how the tour was  designed . Who put it together? Who came up with the itinerary? Why are you visiting one place and not another?  Ask the organizers if local people were involved, and double-check once you’re in the community.
• Follow the money.  Find out where the profits go and if the tourism economics are more beneficial than harmful. Are some profits returned to the community? What has been achieved – are there more schools, projects, education or jobs as a result?  Ask the operators, and double check their answers.

Granted, much of this information will not be easy to find, especially before you book.

But you have the ethical obligation to find out: what are the disadvantages of slum tourism in the area you are visiting? But by asking the right questions, you are showing you care, and are forcing tour operators to  tackle these issues .

Once you’re on the tour, you’ll have a better sense of its ethics and if you don’t like what you see, there’s always social media. If a tour is exploitative – well, word gets around fast.

There are many signs  slum tourism is changing the future of tourism.

More charities are being set up to spread profits around, local people are becoming increasingly involved, negative stereotypes are being challenged, local artisans are being encouraged to sell their work to tourists at fair prices, and tour operators themselves are beginning to understand that slum tourism is not like mass tourism: they don’t have to cram every possible attraction into the shortest possible time.

While some feel much good can come from  properly thought-out slum tours , others believe slum tourism has done more harm than good, with insensitive itineraries pulled together purely for gain.

So which is it: Would visitors be better off staying in a  luxury downtown hotel  while pretending not to see the slum next door? Or is knowledge and awareness the first step towards understanding?

For more information on slum tourism, these resources may help:

• Slum Dwellers International  is a is a network of community-based organizations of the urban poor in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
• Slumtourism.net  brings together academics and practitioners working on tourism in slums and poor rural areas. 
• The  world’s five largest slums .

Both For And Against Slum Tourism

By Zezinho Da Rocinha, Proud Favela Resident In Rio De Janeiro

I certainly understand the  controversy about slum tours . I am both FOR and AGAINST them. Let me explain this.

I was born, grew up and still live in Brazil’s largest slum, or  favela . Life is dificult yes, but not impossible. I am proud to live here in Rocinha. I will never leave here, I do not want to leave here. This is my home. This is my feeling about this issue of  slum/favela tourism .

What I like about the tours is the contact I get from foreigns who come here. This interaction helps me to educate people about my life here in the favela. When foreigners come here I feel like my home or favela has value and is worth to be seen. The Brazilian government mostly ignores us and helps us very little.  We want our voice to be heard . I want to feel that somebody on the outside cares about us and recognizes that we exist. Up until about a few years ago favelas did not exist on maps. Why was this?

Many foreigners come to learn how we create and live in our comunity with little or no goverment involvement. Others come because of the art and culture that exist here.

I do not judge why people come, they confirm that we exist. 

I started in tourism because I saw the opportunity to show my favela and help create jobs for others here.

We live here, and should be making the tours here. I have heard outsider tour companies exaggerate things or  tell outright lies  about my favela. They do this because they do not know and do not live here. I am here to share a social experience, not provide some adrenalin tour.

With my work, many visitors return to volunteer with social projects or to start their own programs in the favela. Recently people have contacted me wanting to make projects like a rooftop garden class. Another person wants to help bring solar energy here. These are people who came on visits here in the favela. Is this bad? What I do NOT like about the tours …tours that use jeeps or trucks are the worst because they present us like a zoo. The tourists have no contact with the locals and this reinforces a sense of possible danger. Tours or visits where the guests walk in the favela are more welcome. There is one company that tells their guests not to interact with the locals if they are approached. This is wrong.

The glamorization of violence is another thing that we do not like here. It is as if these companies are trying to capitalize on some kind of excitement. Favelas are not war zones, and people need understand that real, honest hardworking people live there, we just make less money. There are tour companies here who use the community to make money but they give very little or nothing back to the community. This is not right. They should contribute something for the betterment of the favela. There are plenty of social projects here that could use help.  I am not ashamed to live in the favela and people should not feel shame to come and visit. All we ask is please do not take photos of us like we are animals, and do not have fear if we say hello to you on the street.  If we want to stop or reduce poverty, we need to stop pretending it does not exist. I call it socially responsible tourism. If you chose to tour this type of community, try to give something back, however big or small. I work with an art school and encourage people to bring art supplies, not money. Slums, favelas and shanties are where 1/3 of the population live in all major cities, serving the needs of mostly the rich. Visiting these places may increase your knowledge and awareness at a much deeper level than visiting a museum or art exhibition.  Ignoring poverty is not going to make it go away  and those who have more, should not feel guilt. Unfortunately, this world will always have this unbalance of wealth. Sad but true. Read more about Zezinho on his blog,  Life in Rocinha  or  book a favela walking tour .

— Originally published on 06 February 2011

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Poverty Tourism: Q&A with Chris Way

In the course of fact-checking Peggy Loftus’s latest online special on poverty tours , we talked with Reality Tours and Travel co-founder Chris Way. His company runs tours through Mumbai’s Dharavi , considered by some to be Asia’s largest slum. Since the rebound of tourism in Mumbai after last November’s attacks and the buzz around Slumdog Millionaire , he guesstimates business is up 25 percent.

How did you create Reality Tours and Travel? How did you get it off the ground? I got the idea from the favela tours in Rio. I found the concept fascinating with a lot of potential, as there was definitely a market for people wishing to see this side of the city. Having been in Mumbai previously in 2003 doing some volunteer teaching, I knew about the slums (although not Dharavi at that point) and so decided to return to India in late 2004 with this idea in mind. It quickly became apparent that Dharavi was this fascinating place, with so much industry/ energy/ sense of community that it would definitely appeal to tourists. Krishna, who I met in 2003 when he was waiting my table in Colaba, took a little bit of persuading that tourists would find this place interesting (!), but soon saw the potential and we then formed the company in September 2005. Reality Tours, after a few problems, started in January 2006. What’s the rationale behind your no-camera policy? Do some tour-goers bristle at this prohibition? We started off asking customers to be considerate and respectful while taking photos. We got some criticism in the press for the tours being voyeuristic and having seen some of the photos in the press (of our customers taking photos), we re-considered this policy and felt that on this issue, they had a point. Also there were some comments from people who felt aggrieved that these “rich people were coming here, taking photos and then making lots of money.” We do find that the tour runs a lot more smoothly with the no-camera policy; there is no time wasted as photos are taken and people aren’t distracted wondering where is the best location to take a photo; the focus is on the tour and the information behind it. To be fair, most people are fine with this policy and understand it, although some people would like some places where photos could be taken.

To what do you account the growth in numbers of people interested in and taking your tours over the past two years? First and foremost, the area is fascinating and more people have got to know about the tours that we run through word of mouth and publicity in the press and guidebooks. As a company, I think we provide a very good, professional tour at a very low price and people see that we use the money in a responsible way. Also, I think that this kind of tourism is becoming more popular; people are not just interested in the landmarks and sites of historic importance, but also in the day-to-day lives of people, particularly where this way of life is different to their own.

On your website I spotted mention of possible redevelopment of Dharavi. What’s slated for Dharavi and how may such development(s)

affect the people living there? Dharavi used to be on the edge of the city but is now in a prime location–near the airport and new business area. Hence the value of the land has increased enormously.

This has got the builders interested and so they want to develop the area. Under the scheme, housing will have to be provided to some of the families in the area although due to the financial crisis it’s still not clear when the scheme will go ahead. If it does go ahead, a lot of people will not be eligible for housing (about 50 percent of the people) and will have to leave, some will get bigger flats than what they currently have and some will get smaller. The industries will be more regularized– for example the polluting industries will be banned– and they will all be located in one particular zone. In addition to your tours, Reality Tours and Travel offers market and village tours and even advice on filming locations. How are these offshoots of your tours faring? The market tours have just started, but the few that we have done have been very popular. The village tours–run by my business partner Krishna–are great and have also been very well received by those who have gone on them; total numbers could be higher but cost and time to do the tours (2 days)

deter a few. We’ve helped about five independent documentary makers and bigger TV production houses to film in India, and all have appreciated our transparent, honest and professional service.   Tell us a bit more about your community school. What classes are taught there? Do volunteers teach the classes? We currently run English classes and computer classes there, all taught by people within the community. We have had volunteers but they are here on a temporary basis and we need a commitment for at least 3 months, which in most cases is not possible.   Anything you’d like to add? We ask customers to fill in questionnaires asking them various questions about the Dharavi tour, including would they recommend it to others; nobody has said that they wouldn’t. I fully take the point that people who go on the tour are not an accurate representation of the public as a whole, but it’s difficult to form a complete opinion about our tour without actually going on it. We do try and be as transparent as possible on our website, which does allay many people’s fears.

After talking with Chris, we wanted to know what other companies conduct poverty tours. In Africa, tour operator Micato Safaris

offers an optional post-safari tour through Nairobi’s Mukuru District at no additional cost. Micato spokeswoman Jessica Brida told us about Bernard, who, along with his wife and four children, underwrote the construction and furnishing of the Harambee Center, a community center in Mukuru. He was inspired to help after visiting Mukuru with Micato’s Lend a Helping Hand of Safari program. Opened in June 2007, Harambee Centre serves as base of operations for AmericaShare’s Women’s Empowerment and Community Health Initiative , a cooperative of women organized and financed through micro-loans. The women make and sell handicrafts to support their families, plus they provide food for over 450 community members critically affected by HIV/AIDS.

Finally, poverty tourism isn’t a phenomenon cropping up only in Africa, South America, or Asia. Closer to home, activist and journalist Beauty Turner runs Beauty’s Ghetto Bus Tours

through Chicago’s notorious housing projects, including Cabrini Green.

She started leading the tours in 1996 and runs about 2-4 each month.

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She sees the tours as an opportunity for people living in the projects to tell their own stories, tales often recounted and interpreted inaccurately by sociologists and others, Ms. Turner feels. Her mission, give voice to the voiceless, especially those displaced by the multi-million dollar redevelopment of the projects. She’s planning to start a scholarship program for low-income students. The tours run about three hours and cost $20/person.

IT wants to know what you think about poverty tours: Are they exploitative? Educational?

Helpful to expose those from the developed west to world poverty so they can do their part in ameliorating it have you been on a poverty tour where what was your experience like.

Photos: Chris Way

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Can tourism alleviate global poverty?

Professor of Sustainable Tourism and Director, Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith University

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Susanne Becken does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Wouldn’t it be great if something as simple and pleasurable as international travel could help end something as grinding and enduring as global poverty? After all, the industry is booming, growing at least 4% a year since the 1960s (with a brief slowdown in 2009), according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) .

In 2016, over 1.3 billion international tourists spent an estimated US$1.4 trillion. That’s the equivalent of Australia’s gross domestic product , dispersed around the world.

The UN has even declared 2017 the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development , heralding the role of international travel in reducing poverty. But how much global tourism money really makes its way to poor countries?

That big tourism pie

Researchers from Griffith University and University of Surrey provide a mechanism to get find out – Global Sustainable Tourism Dashboard . And, spoiler alert, it’s not inspiring.

The dashboard was launched in January 2017 to measure tourism’s impacts and contribution to the UN’s 2015-2030 Sustainable Development Goals . Among other sustainability-related indicators, it can determine whether tourism is really redistributing wealth by tracking how much travel money arrives in the world’s least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS).

Some 14% of the global population lives in LDCs (which includes Cambodia and Senegal, among others) and SIDS , like Vanuatu and the Dominican Republic.

Yet in 2016 these countries saw just 5.6% of global international tourism expenditure. If we take Singapore (a small island developing state in name only) out of the mix, it falls to 4.4% – just US$62 billion out of the US$1.4 trillion spent worldwide on travel in 2016.

Mainly, the dashboard shows, global tourism is an economic exchange between rich countries . Citizens of ten nations, most of them in Europe and North America, make about half of all international travel. China, which in 1995 was not a member of this frequent flyer club, broke into the top ten in 2000.

Money can’t buy everything

If the share isn’t great, the total amount of traveller money spent in these countries is still substantial – US$79 billion in 2016 alone. This is as much as the foreign aid budget of the US, Germany, UK and France combined, based on figures from the World Economic Forum .

But money alone doesn’t reduce poverty. If it did, Thailand, the world’s fourth most popular tourism destination, would be rich (it earned US$54 billion from international tourism in 2016).

Whether a cash injection turns into development depends on many well-studied factors . For example, less developed countries lack the critical goods and services that tourists require, including airports, accommodation, key attractions, tour guides and telecommunications, to name just a few.

This leads to what economists call “ leakage ”. When a country must import everything from generators and solar panels to certain kinds of food, it spends a considerable proportion of tourist dollars before they can multiply in the local economy.

In developing countries, leakage ranges from 40% in India to 80% in Mauritius, according to researcher Lea Lange who wrote a 2011 paper for the German development agency GIZ , depending also on the factors that are included in the analysis.

Part of the broader leakage problem is that tourism investors are often foreign, so the profits are expatriated. Cruise lines are notorious for this. Ships may well visit a dozen small island developing states on any given marine jaunt, but most of the profit goes back to headquarters, which are typically located in Western countries.

Don’t let that dollar go

Governments can reduce leakage by thinking strategically about procurement, emphasising local business development, integrating supply chains and investing in education and training to prepare workers for tourism jobs.

Such changes helped Samoa, where tourism is one of the economy’s main pillars, develop a more diversified and lucrative portfolio. Tourism income has grown from US$73 million in 2005 to US$141 million in 2015 (at current prices), when the industry contributed 20% of the country’s GDP . It welcomes about 134,000 international visitors annually.

Among other innovations launched jointly by donors, government and community groups, Samoa increased locals’ share of traveller resources by reinventing its fales – simple, sometimes open-air beach huts that often attract backpacker-types – to appeal to luxury travellers.

Out of the 2,000 hotel rooms in Samoa, about 340 are now fales , which are typically owned and operated by local families. The Samoa Tourism Authority assists them in business planning, marketing and service delivery.

Samoan tourism was given a boost by a lucrative 2009 contract with the Body Shop to produce and sell coconut-based beauty products. With the Samoan Women In Business Development Initiative securing continuity and scale, this deal is likely to create positive domestic tourism spin-offs like greater entrepreneurial capacity among Samoan women, business confidence, and brand enhancement of Samoa with luxury connotations.

By 2014, Samoa was no longer classified as a least-developed country.

Making sure that visitor dollars benefit local people also depends on the commitment of foreign-owned companies, particularly hotel groups, to partner with and invest in local communities.

The Marriott in Port au Prince, for example, has been feted not just for setting up shop in earthquake-shattered Haiti (one of the world’s least-developed countries ) in 2015 but for hiring local, paying well and focusing on professional development . This has proven to be a good business strategy, too. With happy workers, the hotel has very low turnover.

Making tourism work

Ecuador, Fiji and South Africa are among other countries illustrating that tourism can contribute to development and alleviate poverty. The English travel agency Responsible Travel , which holds annual World Responsible Tourism Awards, showcases more great examples.

International organisations such as the UN can help countries find this balance by financing transport connectivity, for example, and facilitating infrastructure investment that’s mindful of potential tourism uses.

Capacity-building among domestic stakeholders is also critical. Only when a destination’s tourism offices, luxury hotels and ecoparks are run and staffed by well-trained locals can the benefits of tourism be equitably distributed, its costs effectively managed and its growth sustainable.

Individuals have a role to play, too, by making ethical travel choices. Tourists visiting developing countries can maximise the community benefits of their trip by “going local” on everything from food and tour companies to craft purchases.

Opting for certified “responsible” companies and simply by asking the right questions may also send an important signal over time that tourists care about their impacts.

Tourism will never end poverty. But if governments, industries and consumers start paying attention, they can make it a force for change.

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Poverty tourism: why it’s not as ugly as it sounds

Last week I read The Case Against Sharing , a post on Medium which referred to Airbnb, Lyft and similar services as ‘Big Sharing’ . The phrase immediately raised my hackles.

It drips with cynicism, taking something really quite lovely and reducing it to something soulless: a corporate vehicle that only exists to create money. ‘Big Sharing’ sullies the phenomenon of real sharing.

It implies that it’s not so much a phenomenon as a boardroom strategy put together with the sole purpose of commoditising the individual. For me, it illustrates how powerful an ugly term can be and how visceral our reaction to it.

This brought me to another equally ugly term: poverty tourism.

‘Poverty tourism’, ‘slum tourism’ or ‘poorism’ conjure images of privileged kids who, despite their best intentions, do more harm than good – as captured so incisively in this post by former voluntourist Pippa Biddle.

The terms evoke pictures of rich tourists gleefully boarding their 4x4s for a day of gawping at the toothless locals, all in all just a few rungs above that awful photoshoot in Vogue India a few years ago.

But here’s the thing: I don’t think that poverty tourism is all bad. I believe that in most cases it provides understanding, empathy and a sense of perspective seldom gained in the developed world.

I say this because I would be a different person now if I hadn’t spent a month in Bangladesh as a 13 year old. I would be more attached to the things I’ve bought with money, I would spend more time dwelling on my problems and I most likely wouldn’t have quit my job to go backpacking across the Pacific.

I certainly wouldn’t donate to fantastic nonprofits like Watsi  as much, nor champion them to other people. I think it’s safe to say that my experience at 13 has helped me a lot and, to a lesser extent, helped others too.

Most people I know who have seen extreme poverty can recall a single moment that drove it all home. For me, it was watching one of the village kids – a kid who I had swum with, played with, laughed with – dig through one of our rubbish bags and fish out two pieces of bread crust.

We fed the local kids whenever we could and from that point on, we also started to bury our sanitary products in the ground so they no longer jostled with the leftovers that would later be retrieved.

Perhaps my experience wasn’t ‘tourism’ per se as I was staying with family in my father’s childhood village, but the lessons I learnt can be learned in many other places by many other people.

I don’t believe that a nuanced experience can be picked up on a jeep tour through Mumbai’s slums or a guided walk through Rio’s favelas, but if you take some real time to interact with locals and to learn about their lives, then ‘poverty tourism’ – as ugly as it sounds – can enrich your life and others’ too.

Personally, meeting people different from me is what I’m looking forward to most. You see, there used to be a time – a very long time in fact – that the only middle class people I interacted with were my teachers at school.

From age 4 to age 18, nearly everyone I talked to was working class. Now, the tables have turned completely. All my friends and nearly everyone I talk to on a daily basis are educated and middle class.

Most of them are highly knowledgeable and deeply interesting, but we all worry about the same things, we feel indignant about the same things and are heartened by the same things.

I want to meet people who live different lives, who will change my perspective and maybe I, theirs. If that means spending time in a slum or a favela, then that’s what I will do. It’s probably going to change me all over again – but that’s the amazing thing about travel.

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What is pro-poor tourism and why is it so great?

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Pro-poor tourism is a fantastic example of how tourism can be used as a force for good. But what exactly is pro-poor tourism and how does it work? Read on to learn more…

What is pro-poor tourism?

How does pro-poor tourism work, benefits of pro-poor tourism, limitations of pro-poor tourism, ecotourism in laos, the african pro-poor tourism development centre, reality tours & travel, bedouin weaving in israel, ashanti african tours, further reading.

Pro-poor tourism, often referred to as PPP, is a model of tourism that ‘generates net benefits for the poor’. It dates back to the early 2000s (with the term first being coined in 1999) and was presented as an initiative to use the vast amount of money generated by tourism, to help the world’s poorest people. Strategically, pro-poor tourism aims to ‘increase economic stability and mitigate the negative effects of local cultures and environments’. 

Essentially, pro-poor tourism is about generating more money for poor people in poor countries. It aims to improve their lives through the billions of Pounds the tourism industry brings in every year. This sounds great, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to go on vacation and know that by doing so they are helping to enhance the lives of the poor? Unfortunately, it isn’t quite as simple as it sounds and in order to achieve this is requires careful management of the economic impacts of tourism .

There are three strategies which countries must apply in order to see success with pro-poor tourism. These are as follows:

• To increase the financial profits of poor people
• To enrich the lives of the native community
• To encourage collaboration with the poor

As you can see, each of these strategies place poor people and locals ahead of tourists . The concept understands that the people who live in these communities, whose homes and livelihoods are here, are more important than the fleeting visitors.

The Borgen Project, a non-profit dedicated to eradicating poverty and hunger, explain this in more detail:

The first strategy of Pro-Poor Tourism is to increase the financial profits of the poor. PPT promotes the growth of local occupational opportunities and the development of local businesses that supply products for the tourist industry. The second strategy is to enrich the lives of native citizens. PPT provides locals with availability to facilities and services originally established for tourists. The third strategy of Pro-Poor Tourism is to stimulate collaboration with the poor. This involves promoting the participation of the poor in the government and private sectors. In addition, it also includes increasing policy formation that supports the involvement of the poor.

So how exactly can tourism help the poor? Well there are many different things that tourism industry stakeholders can do to ensure that tourism development and planning focusses on benefitting the poor, some examples include:

• Hiring local people
• Donating part of the profits to the local community
• Building facilities and infrastructure that will also improve the lives of the local community
• Introducing volunteer tourism projects
• Limiting economic leakage in tourism
• Developing tourism that involves the host community such as cultural tourism or agritourism
• Integrating public needs into tourism planning and development
• Giving the local community a voice

There are, naturally, some pro-poor tourism initiatives that work better than others, and this often comes down to the way that it is managed. Here is a a 10 point list demonstrating good practice in pro-poor tourism:

• PPT goes well beyond community tourism. It needs a diversity of actions, from micro to macro level , including product development, marketing, planning, policy, and investment .
• 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). Actions outside tourism, such as on land tenure, small enterprise, representative government, are also key.
• Location matters. PPT works best where the wider destination is developing well.
• In remote areas the poverty impact may be greater, though tourism itself may be on a limited scale .
• 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.
• 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.
• 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).
• Non-financial benefits (e.g. increased participation) can reduce vulnerability, more could be done to address these .
• PPT is a long-term investment. Expectations must be managed and short-term benefits developed in the interim .
• External funding may be required to cover the substantial transaction costs of establishing partnerships, developing skills, and revising policies (not generally for direct subsidies to enterprises).

There are, of course, so many benefits to pro-poor tourism. The main one is that when done correctly, it helps people out of poverty. This is one of the most important things in the world. Coming out of poverty enables people to have better physical and mental health; it allows them to be properly nourished, to focus on something other than being in poverty. With 9.2% of the global population living in what is described as ‘extreme poverty’ (on less than $1.90 per day), it is clear that something needs to be done. Pro-poor tourism is a proactive step in the right direction. 

When one person comes out of poverty thanks to pro-poor tourism, it creates a knock on effect. They are able to help others, and advise their community. Success builds success, and the opportunities coming out of this concept are life changing for many.

The benefits of pro-poor tourism don’t stop there. If we think about applying this to our own travels, it encourages us to be a bit more considerate. Rather than choosing a chain restaurant, perhaps, we might choose a small family-run business for dinner. This way the profits are going straight back into the local community! Being a pro-poor tourist means thinking carefully about where your money is going, and how much of it is being used to help people in poverty. It can be less convenient, but it feels much better to know that your tourist dollars are supporting poor people.

There are limitations when it comes to pro-poor tourism. Of course, once someone is in poverty it is difficult to get out. There may be jobs provided and money going into the local community but where debts and taxes are high, there is often not much more that tourists and travel companies can do.

And of course, businesses like to see a profit. Wen et al published an article in 2021 entitled Pro-Poor Tourism and Local Practices: An Empirical Study of an Autonomous County in China , and they found that:

Enterprises participating in pro-poor tourism strategies provide a creative channel to reduce poverty in less economically developed areas and help form a diversified group of tourism poverty alleviation participants. However, in the early stage of tourism development, tourism enterprises have to deal with substantial control and management dilemmas because of the large capital investment required, the small number of tourists, and the slow return on capital.

In addition, pro-poor tourism relies on different sectors working together. Governments, agencies, donors and tourists themselves must all be on the same page – and in reality, this is often difficult to master.

Sadly, not all people who work in the travel and tourism industry are philanthropic in nature, nor are they entirely honest and transparent. There are some organisations that may claim to help the poor in order to gain a positive corporate social image, but their claims may not reflect reality. I suggest that if you are considering embarking on a pro-poor tourism venture, take a careful look at the companies involved in attempt to verify where your money will go and if it is indeed directed towards the poor in the way that is anticipated. Whilst this information might not always be transparent, you can start by reading the company reviews, as that will often give you a good clue.

Examples of pro-poor tourism

There are many examples worldwide of pro-poor tourism around the world. That is, activities that exist to especially benefit the poorest communities globally. You can see some specific ones below!

Laos, in Southeast Asia, is a breathtaking country. With ecological diversity, a mountainous terrain, stunning French colonial architecture, hill tribe settlements and Buddhist monasteries, there is so much to discover here. Ecotourism Laos aim to protect the country’s natural resources as well as benefit the poor community. The vision is as follows:

Laos will become a world renowned destination specializing in all forms of sustainable tourism that, through partnership and cooperation, will benefit natural and cultural heritage conservation, local socio-economic development, and spread knowledge of Laos’ uniqueness around the world.

They provide opportunities for tourists to discover the beautiful country while proactively giving back to the community. Local villagers are able to get involved with tourist activities, which they can then benefit from. For example, you can go on an interactive hike with a locally trained guide. This is a way of investing in the people and economy of Laos.

Known as the APTDC, this organisation uses tourism as follows:

…as a strategic tool to enhance social economic development and improve social-wellbeing of communities through Pro-Poor Tourism Development interventions. This simply means ensuring that the travel and transport sector supports local based/acceptable development interventions for the POOR and VULNERABLE populations from various communities in Kenya, sustainably. This is realized through  short and longterm partnerships with communities, government,  individuals, institutions, foundations, donors, corporates and associations.

You can pay slightly more for your safari in Kenya, with the price difference going directly towards supporting community developed projects. The money pays for access to clean water and education for local residents in Kenya.

This is a company based in India . I discussed them in this blog post about slum tourism . What they do can be classed as pro-poor tourism. They offer ‘ethical and educational’ slum tours in Mumbai. These claim to offer a glimpse into everyday life, and many tourists do want to visit slums whilst in India – whether or not you agree with this practice is up to you. However, Reality Tours & Travel as a company are dedicated to improving the lives of the community, especially those living below the poverty line. As such, 80% of profits are directed to Reality Gives. This is their NGO, providing access to quality education for children across India since 2009. Alongside this, the majority of tour guides are from the community too. This is pro-poor tourism in action for sure.

Sidreh-Lakiya is a non-profit organisation aiming to improve the lives of Bedouin women. You can choose from a few different tours: trying Bedouin weaving, learning about women-led economic development initiatives, or understanding Bedouin life from a geopolitical perspective. The proceeds benefit the organisation and its women directly. Israel is a fascinating country to visit, but sadly a whopping 85% of the Bedouin community in Negev live below the poverty line. Sidreh-Lakiya are providing a brilliant example of pro-poor tourism, which is really beneficial to the local community.

There are many parts of Africa with high poverty levels. Ashanti African Tours, based in Ghana, run tours in a few different African countries. From Senegal to Liberia and Ethiopia to Ghana itself, you can go birdwatching or hiking, explore the local history and so much more. There is wildlife and culture on offer wherever you look. They aim to support businesses run by local community members, therefore putting money into local economies. Ashanti also provides opportunities for local communities. These include school projects, free training to educate youths to become self-sufficient, and even free reading and writing lessons for adults. This is pro-poor tourism in action, benefitting so many people across an entire continent .

There has been so much research done into pro-poor tourism. This covers its impacts and benefits, as well as the many questions that have surrounded the concept since its birth. You can read some of them, as well as some other articles that may interest you, below.

• Pro-Poor Tourism: Harnessing the World’s Largest Industry for the World’s Poor
• The Strategy of Pro-Poor Tourism by Borgen
• Accessible tourism explained: What, why and how
• What is ‘begpacking’ and why is it so bad?
• What is sustainable tourism and why does it matter?

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Tourism and income inequality

Journal of Business and Socio-economic Development

ISSN : 2635-1374

Article publication date: 19 August 2022

Issue publication date: 28 October 2022

Tourism has grown to be one of the world's largest and fastest-growing economic industries. Tourism development is viewed as a tool to improve income distribution as it allows people at the bottom of the pyramid to get involved in the industry. This study aims to examine the impact of tourism on income inequality in the top income equality countries.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper employs fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares techniques to investigate the dynamic impact of tourism on income inequality in the world's most income equality countries, from 2001 to 2016.

The result shows that tourism is one of the major drivers of income equality. Thus, tourism can be used to reduce a country's income disparity.

Practical implications

As a result, policymakers should support the tourism industry to reduce income disparity and enhance income distribution.

Originality/value

Given the conflicting findings in the literature, this study reexamines this link and attempts to backwardly assess if the top equal-income countries in the world are heavily dependent on tourism.

• Income inequality
• Panel dynamic model
• Fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS)
• Dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS)

Subramaniam, Y. , Masron, T.A. and Loganathan, N. (2022), "Tourism and income inequality", Journal of Business and Socio-economic Development , Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 181-194. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBSED-07-2021-0102

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Yogeeswari Subramaniam, Tajul Ariffin Masron and Nanthakumar Loganathan

Published in Journal of Business and Socio-economic Development . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

Despite several years of progress, income inequality remains a concern. It declined significantly in the first half of the twentieth century, but has been steadily rising in the majority of the world's countries since the early 1980s ( Roser and Ortiz-Ospina, 2016 ). More specifically, income inequality has increased dramatically in North America, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil and Asia, whereas it has grown moderately in Europe ( Alvaredo et al. , 2018 ). It has increased at varied rates in almost all countries, with the top 10% accounting for 37% of national income in Europe, 41% in China, 46% in Russia, 47% in the United States and Canada and around 55% in sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil and India ( Alvaredo et al. , 2018 ). This rise in inequality is widening the gap between the rich and poor, resulting in lower per capita income for the poor and an inability to eliminate, or even reduce, poverty rates. As a result, it limits the opportunities of poorer people and, over time, has difficulties in maintaining social stability and economic prosperity. Hence, without a significant reduction in inequality, the world will fall short of its aim of ending extreme poverty by 2030.

Accordingly, there is a growing consensus that assessments of countries' economic conditions should focus not solely on income growth, but also on income distribution. Reducing income inequality is an essential goal for each country seeking sustainable development, and addressing these disparities will be each country's greatest challenge. According to previous studies, there are several ways to reduce the rising inequality in all countries such as taxes, money transfers (i.e. gifts or subsidies), regulation and education ( Gupta et al. , 2002 ; Panizza, 2002 ; Calderón and Chong, 2009 ; Abdullah et al. , 2015 ; Krieger and Meierrieks, 2016 ; Biswas et al. , 2017 ). Taxes and transfers contributed greatly to the lowering of income inequality by raising tax rates on high-wage workers and providing cash and social transfers to those in need ( Biswas et al. , 2017 ). The combination of taxes and transfers plays a major role in narrowing the income inequalities gap. It has been proven in OECD countries, where income inequality after taxes and transfers was approximately 25% lower than before taxes and transfers in the late 2000s ( OECD, 2011 ). Cash transfers such as pensions, employment and social security reduce inequality by one-third across OECD countries ( OECD, 2011 ). Besides, there is also potential to equalize income distribution by promoting equal access to education. According to the World Bank report, increasing education from generation to generation can result in a reduction in income inequality ( World Bank, 2018b ). This is because education increases people's opportunities to learn and improves the relevant skills of the poor. Therefore, it seems that promoting equal opportunities in education can support countries in fostering more equitable income distribution.

Apart from the above-mentioned channels, tourism can also offer a direct solution to the poor. Nowadays, tourism is recognized as a strategy for economic development, contributing to increasing income, leveraging human capital and improving the livelihoods of the local community ( Cárdenas-García et al. , 2015 ; Du et al. , 2016 ). When the tourism sector is properly planned and managed, it can stimulate income growth and government tax revenues in host countries. From 2010 to 2015, the tourism sector grew by 25%, outperforming the automotive manufacturing (22%), food (19%) and chemical (9%) sectors, and it accounted for 10% of GDP, 7% of international trade and 30% of the world services exports ( World Travel and Tourism Council, 2019 ). Moreover, the United Nations designated 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism to ensure that the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are met ( United Nations Climate Change, 2017 ). Indirectly, tourism is considered to be a powerful and effective tool for bringing tremendous benefits to economies, societies and communities. In this context, tourism can be a tool for reducing income disparity in a country. It can contribute to better opportunities and better lives by creating jobs and opportunities for businesses and by contributing to the production of tourism services and goods. For example, the pro-poor tourism approach could have positive effects on income equality by generating economic, social and environmental benefits for the poor, resulting in a more inclusive and prosperous society ( Incera and Fernández, 2015 ; Bakker and Messerli, 2017 ). Pro-poor tourism typically focuses on unlocking opportunities for the poor rather than expanding the size of the sector and has progressed toward reducing inequality.

According to Figure 1 , Ukraine, Iceland, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Belarus, Finland, Kazakhstan and Norway are ranked as the most equal countries in the world, based on the World Bank's Gini index. The Gini index, as a measure of the income distribution, indicates a slight decline in income inequality from 2001 to 2016, suggesting a trend toward greater income equality. Interestingly, the top nine nations are classified into one regional group, namely the European subregion. Thus, the question is what drives these countries toward achieving a lower level of income inequality. According to recent research by International Monetary Fund (IMF) on income inequality, the level of income inequality in Europe has remained stable at the aggregate level since those countries operate on a welfare model. The welfare model refers to a concept in which the government gives free social services such as medical care, financial aid, unemployment insurance and education to its citizens. For instance, Finland is situated in Northern Europe and provides free basic services to its citizens such as health care, insurance, education and water supply to support their social welfare and living standards. Likewise, Norway is designated as a welfare state with free health care and education services for its citizens and is among the countries with the most equal income distribution. Thus, the welfare state in these countries plays an important role in reducing income inequality, by equalizing opportunities, wealth distribution, income and public accountability for people who cannot afford the bare necessities of life. While acknowledging the positive effect of the welfare state on income inequality, it is worth noting that European countries dominate the list of the world's most visited countries. Europe is a fascinating region that attracts millions of tourists each year as compared to the Americas, Africa and Asia regions. Tourism has the potential to contribute significantly to regional and national growth while also diversifying national economic activities. An increase in tourism activity leads to economic growth via foreign exchange gains, the creation of new tourism-related business opportunities and an increase in tax revenues. These findings may suggest that countries with higher tourist arrivals have a more equitable income distribution. Accordingly, the question of whether tourism is a viable approach to improving income distribution arises. Thus, the research aims to investigate the impact of tourism on income inequality in the top income equality countries. To the best of our knowledge, this study attempts to look at the countries with the most equal-income distribution, as well as those with a high entry of foreign tourists. This may provide scholars and practitioners with insights into how tourism development affects income inequality in countries with high tourist arrivals. In other words, the findings of this study may help policymakers in making future decisions about reducing income inequality, which may lead not only to more equality but also to a more robust tourism industry. As a result, the current study's findings are likely to be reliable and provide valuable policy implications on income inequality issues.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 outlines the literature review and Section 3 explains the panel data regression model. Section 4 presents and discusses the empirical results, and, finally, Section 5 concludes.

2. Literature review

Several studies investigated the impact of income, inflation, corruption and foreign direct investment on income inequality under the framework of the so-called Kuznets curve hypothesis ( Kuznets, 1955 ). The Kuznets curve postulates an inverted-U curve relationship between income and income inequality, implying that income raises income inequality during the early stages of economic development. However, it may reduce income inequality when the economy grows. In this context, many theoretical and empirical studies were conducted to examine the Kuznets curve hypothesis such as Lewis (1954) , Pasinetti (1962) , Kuznets (1955) , Shahbaz (2010) , Shin (2012) , Tiwari et al. (2013) , Rose and Viju (2014) , Batabyal and Chowdhury (2015) , Le et al. (2020) , Canh et al. (2020) , Ghosh and Mitra (2021) , Huynh (2022) and Ali et al. (2022) .

Shahbaz (2010) , Tiwari et al. (2013) , Rose and Viju (2014) , Batabyal and Chowdhury (2015) and Shin (2012) corroborated the evidence of the Kuznets curve in Pakistan, India, Central and Eastern European countries, Commonwealth countries and global countries, respectively. These studies found that once a country achieves a certain level of economic growth, income has a negative impact on income inequality. The negative impact might be explained by the level of industrialization and infrastructure achievement. For instance, an increase in industrialization and infrastructure achievement is generally accompanied by an increase in job opportunities and employment. As a result, poverty will be reduced, while income inequality will worsen. However, Anand and Kanbur (1993) , Deininger and Squire (1998) , Schultz (1998) and Acemoglu and Robinson (2002) failed to support the existence of the Kuznets curve. This implies that the Kuznets curve is more prevalent in developed countries than in developing countries. Thus, this study hypothesizes the presence of a significant impact of income on income inequality.

Furthermore, corruption does not only undermine economic development but also has an impact on the level of social development. This is partly because corruption is a major impediment to progress and prosperity for people, especially the poor, minorities and women. In this context, Gupta et al. (2002) , Gyimah-Brempong (2002) , Apergis et al. (2010) , Dincer and Gunalp (2012) , Batabyal and Chowdhury (2015) , Pi and Zhou (2015) , Cooray and Schneider (2016) , Sulemana and Kpienbaareh (2018) , Keneck-Massil et al. (2021) , Khan (2021) , Jonathan Gimba et al. (2021) and Khan et al. (2022) , among others, argued that higher corruption will worsen the income distribution for two reasons. First, evidence suggests that corruption inhibits poverty reduction by slowing growth and thereby widening the gap between rich and poor. Second, increased corruption can exacerbate income inequality by distorting the government's role in resource allocation. Such distortions in government engagement will hinder the poor's ability to invest or borrow while favoring the wealthy population. Corruption, for example, can lead to poor tax administration and tax evasion, disproportionately favoring the wealthy population and decreasing the progressiveness of the tax scheme, leading to increased income inequality. In the same vein, previous studies suggested that countries with a high level of corruption tend to have unequal distribution of income.

Over the last few decades, several studies identified tourism as one of the key contributors to economic growth through higher tax revenues, foreign currency gains and international investment. Given the importance of tourism, several studies including those by Bartik (1991) , Papatheodorou (2004) , Schilcher (2007) , Tosun et al. (2003) , Lee and O'Leary (2008) , Scheyvens and Momsen (2008) , Lee (2009) , Muchapondwa and Stage (2013) , Incera and Fernández (2015) , Raza and Shah (2017) , Li et al. (2016) , Li et al. (2015) , Fang et al. (2021) , Zhang (2021) , Ghosh and Mitra (2021) , Odhiambo (2022) and Sudsawasd et al. (2022) examined its impact on income disparity. According to these studies, tourism has both detrimental and beneficial effects on a country's income inequality. On the one hand, empirical studies such as those conducted by Bartik (1991) , Papatheodorou (2004) , Schilcher (2007) , Tosun et al. (2003) , Lee and O'Leary (2008) , Scheyvens and Momsen (2008) , Lee (2009) , Muchapondwa and Stage (2013) and Zhang (2021) demonstrated that growth in tourism increases income inequality. Using time series data, Bartik (1991) investigated the effect of tourism on income inequality and found that tourism boosts domestic economic activity, and consequently faster economic growth intensifies the distribution of domestic income. This is because of growing economic growth, which leads to higher inflation and property values. On the other hand, some studies such as Incera and Fernández (2015) , Raza and Shah (2017) , Li et al. (2016) , Li et al. (2015) , Fang et al. (2021) , Ghosh and Mitra (2021) , Odhiambo (2022) and Sudsawasd et al. (2022) found that tourism development reduces poverty and hence increases income distribution. This is mainly because pro-poor tourism serves to alleviate income inequality by giving a net benefit to the poor. A pro-poor tourism approach is likely to increase opportunities, generate employment and help the most vulnerable groups by making them involved in the production of tourism-related goods and services. Hence, tourism can be used to achieve equitable distribution of income such as Incera and Fernández (2015) for developed countries, Alam and Paramati (2016) for developing countries, Raza and Shah (2017) for top tourist arrival countries and Li et al. (2015 , 2016) for China. Although several empirical studies tackled the relationship between tourism and income inequality in the United States, China and developed and developing countries, the relationship remains ambiguous in the rest of the world, requiring further empirical research. Given the ambivalent nature of the literature's findings, this study reexamines this relationship and attempts to backwardly ascertain whether countries with more equitable income distribution in the world are heavily supported by tourism. Three factors influence the countries' selection. First, studies on the top income equality countries may provide a more accurate picture of the importance of tourism in explaining the linkage in these countries than in other groups of countries. Second, as compared to developed nations, these countries encountered moderate economic growth, with a substantial decrease in income disparities. Third, these countries have a high number of foreign tourists.

Additionally, the relevant implications of this paper are as follows: (1) this study examines the presence of the Kuznets curve using multicounty data set for European countries [1] , (2) the econometric techniques of fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) are used to examine the dynamic implication of tourism on income inequality in the world's most equal income nations and (3) this paper explores the dynamic linkages among these variables not just for a panel of countries but also for a single country.

3. Methodology

Following Kuznets (1955) , Shahbaz (2010) , Shin (2012) , Tiwari et al. (2013) , Rose and Viju (2014) and Batabyal and Chowdhury (2015) , a general specification of the Kuznets equation can be set as follows: (1) IE i t = ( Y i t ,   Y i t 2 )

In this equation, IE stands for income inequality, and Y and Y 2 represent income and income square, respectively. We also included a measure of corruption (CORR) as a control variable to the basic and general framework. In addition, to examine our central hypothesis that tourism can be a potential determinant of income inequality, we extended Eq. (1) by incorporating a measure of tourism (TOU) as follows: (2) IE i t = ( Y i t ,   Y i t 2 ,   CORR i t ,   TOU i t )

Eq. (2) can be parameterized as follows: (3) IE i t = Y i t β 1 , Y i t 2 β 2 , CORR i t β 3 , TOU i t β 4

Then, Eq. (3) was transformed into its logarithmic form, where ε i t is the standard error and the prefix ln represents the natural logarithm. Eq. (4) can be rewritten as (4) ln IE i t = β 0 + β 1 ⁡ ln Y i t + β 2 ⁡ ln Y i t 2 + β 3 ⁡ ln CORR i t + β 4 ⁡ ln TOU i t + ε i t where subscripts i and t refer to countries and years, respectively, ε t denotes the model's error term and other variables were transformed in natural logs. Accordingly, the presence of Kuznets is confirmed by β 1 being significantly positive and β 2 being significantly negative. β 3 is also expected to be positive since a higher rate of corruption tends to lead to more unequal income distributions, while the focal parameter β 4 is expected to have a significant influence on income inequality.

Furthermore, panel estimating methodologies were employed to investigate the presence of a long-term relationship between income inequality, income, inflation, corruption and tourism. First, it is necessary to determine whether the dependent and independent variables evolve as unit root processes to investigate the possibility of a panel cointegration. In this study, the order of variable integration was investigated using the panel unit root test proposed by Levin et al. (2002) and Im et al. (2003) . The Levin-Lin-Chu (LLC) test considers the following basic augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) specification, as follows: (5) Δ y i t = α y i t − 1 + ∑ j = 1 p i β i j Δ y i t − j + X i t δ + ε i t

We assume a common ρ − 1 , but allow the lag order for the difference term p i to vary across the cross-section. The null hypothesis is there is a unit root, and the alternative is there is no unit root. Furthermore, Im et al. (2003) or Im-Pesaran-Shin (IPS) test allows for individual unit root processes and the ρ i to vary across cross-sections. The null hypothesis is α i = 0   for all   i , while the alternative hypothesis is α i < 0   for  i = 1,2 , … , N 1 and α i = 0   for   i = N + 1 , N + 2 , … , N . Rejecting the null hypothesis does not imply rejecting the unit root for all i .

After establishing the existence of a panel unit root, the second step was to test the panel integration using the Pedroni test to determine whether there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between the variables. Pedroni's cointegration test is appropriate because it allows us to test the cointegration of models involving more than one independent variable. The panel cointegration test allows for cross-sectional dependency with both different individual effects and deterministic trends and it can be written as: (6) ln IE i t = α i t + δ i t + β 1 ⁡ ln Y i t + β 2 ⁡ ln Y i t 2 + β 3 ⁡ ln CORR i t + β 4 ⁡ ln TOU i t + ε i t ε i t = ρ i t ε i t − 1 + u i t

The parameters α i t and δ i allow for the possibility of country-specific effect and deterministic trend effect, respectively. ε i t represents the estimated residual deviations from the long-run relationship. There are two tests such as panel tests and group tests to test the null hypothesis of no cointegration. The panel tests are based on the within-dimension method and include four statistics of panel V-statistic, panel rho-statistic, panel PP-statistic and panel ADF-statistic. Second, the group tests are based on the between-dimension method and include three statistics, namely, group rho-statistic, group PP-statistic and group ADF-statistic. Then, the long-run cointegration vector was estimated using FMOLS ( McCoskey and Kao, 1998 ). The advantage of the FMOLS is that it corrects for both endogeneity bias and serial correlation.

Eq. (4) was estimated using panel data covering nine countries (Ukraine, Iceland, Slovenia, Czechia, Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Finland and Norway) from 2001 to 2016. Income inequality (as measured by the Gini index), income (as measured by GDP per capita) and corruption (as measured by control of corruption) were collected from the World Development Indicators (WDI) provided by the World Bank, whereas tourism data (as measured by tourism revenue as a percentage of GDP) were collected from World Travel and Tourism Council. The Gini coefficient ranges from zero (perfect equality) to one (perfect inequality). More importantly, all variables were transformed to natural logarithms, from which the estimated coefficients could be interpreted as elasticities.

4. Results and discussion

We employed panel unit root tests to identify the order of integration of each variable. The results of the LLC and IPS panel unit root tests for each variable are shown in Table 1 . Each test is run for the level and the first difference of variables. From Table 1 , all variables were nonstationary at levels. After taking the first difference, the results confirmed the stationarity of all variables, concluding that all of the variables employed in this study are integrated at order one or I (1).

Once the integrating order of the variables was confirmed, the existence of a long-run dynamic relationship between variables was tested using Pedroni (1999) , and the panel cointegration test statistics are reported in Table 2 . The five statistics significantly reject the null hypothesis of no cointegration, except for the panel and group rho-statistics. This shows the existence of a cointegration relationship between income inequality and the variables (income, income squared, corruption and tourism). Thus, the Pedroni cointegration technique confirms the existence of a long-run relationship between the variables, and the direction of causality can be investigated.

In the third step, we investigated the impact of income, corruption and tourism on income inequality. The FMOLS results are reported in Table 3 . The findings indicated that income and income square have a positive and negative impact on income disparity, respectively. The results confirm the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between income and income inequality, hence supporting the presence of the Kuznets hypothesis for countries with the most equal income distribution due to demographic shifts. For example, Ukraine, Iceland, Slovenia and Slovakia have a higher proportion of working-age people aged between 15 and 64 and lower unemployment rates ( Le  et al. , 2020 ; Canh et al. , 2020 ; Ghosh and Mitra, 2021 ; Huynh, 2022 ; Ali et al. , 2022 ). Working-age population groups are important because they increase the country's labor share and productivity, thereby resulting in less inequality. Moreover, given our sample, the negative sign of income squared showed that income inequality is lower in countries with more economic development.

The effect of corruption on income inequality is positive and statistically significant for these nine countries. As a result, an increase in corruption would expand income inequality. As corruption magnifies, high-income groups will have more opportunities and resources than low- and middle-income groups ( Keneck-Massil et al. , 2021 ; Khan, 2021 ; Jonathan Gimba et al. , 2021 ; Khan et al. , 2022 ). Thereby, the gap between the high-income and the low-income groups will widen, and income inequality will increase. Second, corruption contributes to inequality by diverting government spending away from programs benefiting poor people (education and health), which will predominantly hurt people in lower-income groups. Others suggest that the burden of corruption is typically disproportionately borne by low- and middle-income individuals because they pay a higher proportion of their income as a bribe.

Moving to the findings of the study's focal variable, tourism is a negative and statistically significant indicator in all these nine countries. This indicates that tourism boosts the country's economic growth while simultaneously decreasing income inequality. The rationale of this argument is that tourist inflows stimulate economic activity by generating revenue and that higher economic growth improves income distribution ( Fang et al., 2021 ; Ghosh and Mitra, 2021 ; Odhiambo, 2022 ; Sudsawasd et al. , 2022 ). For instance, tourism revenue generated by local governments can be used to invest in industries such as accommodation, food and beverage, telecommunications and recreation, benefiting small and medium enterprises (SMEs), resulting in a higher benefit to lower-income individuals and a reduction in existing income inequalities ( Kahveci, 2022 ). Furthermore, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development urged governments to maximize tourism's potential for poverty eradication by putting poor people and poverty at the center of the idea. In this context, pro-tourism is an approach that guarantees the poor's benefits from tourist inflows by unlocking opportunities for them in the tourism sector. Thus, tourism can be used as an instrument to reduce poverty and narrow the income gap. In that way, three core activities are needed to narrow the rich-poor gap: expanding business and employment opportunities in the tourism industry for low-income individuals to increase access to economic benefits; promoting the poor's participation in tourism planning and decision-making process; and encouraging partnership between the private and public sectors in introducing new tourism products. This implies that expanding the tourism sector will improve the welfare of the low- and middle-income earners and reduce the inequality in those countries.

For robustness purposes, the results obtained from the FMOLS estimator were tested using an alternative single equation estimator, namely the dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) methodology. The advantage of this approach is that it takes into account the presence of a mixed order of integration of the individual variables in the cointegrated framework. This estimator addresses two important limitations: possible endogeneity problem and small sample bias ( Begum et al. , 2015 ). Besides that, the cointegrating vectors obtained using the DOLS estimator are asymptotically efficient. Table 4 depicts the DOLS estimator findings, whose results are consistent with the FMOLS results when looking at the sign and significance of the coefficients presented in Table 3 . The negative and statistically significant coefficient of tourism indicates that income inequality decreases with a rise in tourism growth. Following the results of the FMOLS and DOLS estimations, we can conclude that the growth of tourism will result in more equitable income distribution. Therefore, a further expansion of the tourism sector is likely to play a significant role in reducing income inequalities in those economies.

5. Conclusion

The tourism industry is expanding globally to increase employment, income, tax revenue and foreign exchange reserves. Given the significance of tourism, it becomes an essential industry that influences the growth of the country's economy. Aside from this advantage, there is a growing concern that the tourism industry will have a substantial impact on global economic inequality. Therefore, this study aims to examine the impact of tourism on income inequality in the world's most equal income distribution countries from 2001 to 2016. The panel unit root tests, panel cointegration tests and FMOLS estimator were used to estimate the results. Our empirical findings support the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between the variables in these nine countries. Furthermore, this study uncovers evidence supporting the Kuznets hypothesis for the world's top income equality countries. More specifically, tourism is negatively related to income inequality, implying that income distribution becomes more equitable in these nine countries as tourism rises. Hence, our result confirms the likelihood that tourism will remain a development strategy in the foreseeable future as it holds the potential to be a tool for reducing income disparity.

Our findings suggest that policymakers should prioritize investments in the tourism sector to narrow income disparity. To attain this goal, these countries must establish tourism-related businesses such as food and lodging services, travel agencies and transportation, retail and souvenir industries. This has the potential of creating jobs in local communities and attracting a significant number of tourists, which will eventually increase income and reduce inequality. Moreover, governments are encouraged to implement effective tourism policies that strengthen the integration of the tourism industry with other sectors including education, training and the environment. As a result, it fosters fruitful collaboration and contributes to the sector's overall performance.

Despite the aforementioned findings, this study is without any limitations. One of the study's shortcomings is that it focuses on the impact of tourism on income inequality on a general basis. Tourism is a broad sector with various types such as national tourism, international tourism, outbound tourism, business tourism and rural tourism, and the impact of certain tourism types on income inequality is not completely investigated. Originally, this study aims to incorporate the various types of tourism industries, but the available data did not allow for this type of analysis. Given the above, we suggest that further studies be conducted by focusing on the impact of a specific tourism sector on income inequality.

Gini index of the most equal-income distribution countries in the world

Panel unit roots

Note(s): *,** and*** denote significant at 10, 5 and 1% critical values, respectively

Figures in brackets stand for t -statistics

There are limited past studies dealing with European countries with regard to entrepreneurship-tourism nexus such as Lordkipanidze et al. (2005) , Matlay and Westhead (2007) and Solvoll et al. (2015) .

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Further reading

Baek , J. and Gweisah , G. ( 2013 ), “ Does income inequality harm the environment?: empirical evidence from the United States ”, Energy Policy , Vol.  62 , pp.  1434 - 1437 .

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Acknowledgements

Ethics approval and consent to participate : Not applicable.

Consent for publication : Not applicable.

Funding : No funding to declare.

Availability of data and material : The data sets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on a reasonable request.

Authors contributions : All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Competing interests : The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

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What’s the harm in poverty tourism?

Travel Star Travel 39

Last week I sailed aboard the Fathom Cruise Ship Adonia to the Dominican Republic. I have so many stories and photos to share about our week spent on the ship, exploring the Dominican Republic, and participating in impact activities. What you are not going to see in any of my posts are pictures of the impoverished people of the Dominican Republic. You see I discovered something about myself, I am passionate about avoiding  poverty tourism. I want to spread awareness about traveling with a purpose. I want to find ways to respectfully help others that will leave their dignity intact.

What is poverty tourism?

By definition, poverty tourism is a type of tourism that involves financially privileged tourists visiting impoverished communities for the purpose of witnessing poverty firsthand. It is also know as ghetto or slum tourism, poorism, and reality tourism. I would expand upon that definition to include tourism to impoverished areas that may not be intentionally for the purpose of seeing poverty first hand but once visiting these areas tourists find themselves “sightseeing” and  taking pictures without permission resulting in the exploitation of the poor and stealing the dignity of the impoverished. These vacation images can be referred to as poverty porn especially as the tourists return home to share the sad pictures of people at their worst starving, dirty, and possibly ill.

What is the harm in poverty tourism?

So I have nearly completely answered this question in my expanded definition of poverty tourism. As voyeurs of the unfortunate and less fortunate who are struggling to survive in the depths of poverty and horrific conditions we are exploiting these folks. We are stealing their dignity and destroying any sense of pride they may have left. We might as well put them in cages and sell tickets.

The roots of poverty tourism

Poverty tourism became increasingly popular in the 1980’s.  This is in part because black South Africans invited white tourists to come tour the  segregated townships as a way to educate white citizens about the apartheid way of life in South Africa.  It continued after apartheid fell and served to show the world that things were still not fixed. Poverty tourism also has roots in Great Britain where it became a social sightseeing activity to visit the slums and witness the poverty. Today popular destinations for poverty tourism include South Africa, India, Brazil, Kenya, Indonesia, and also Detroit.

What is the purpose of poverty tourism?

Some will argue that poverty tourism helps the economy. Poverty tourism creates jobs. Poverty tourism shines a light on poverty so  that the governments can’t deny the levels of poverty or hide it. I guess I can see the value of the awareness brought about by slum tourism. I guess it is better to see it for yourself first hand then to lazily relax at your resort a few miles away oblivious to the suffering of the areas poorest people. But is the state of ignorance any better than having seen the poverty firsthand and then returning to your everyday life having done nothing to initiate change.

Is it all bad?

As you can guess I am not 100% certain that poverty tourism is all bad. I will say that personally I do think it is wrong. I think it is wrong to treat people as animals to be seen and photographed. I think it is wrong to seek poverty tourism as a form of entertainment or to occupy your time. I think it is wrong to stand outside the fire and watch people burn. If your only intent in visiting impoverished communities is to witness the  poverty firsthand, you are making the problem worse. If you experience the poverty firsthand and return to your life inspired and committed to making a difference to become the change then you are making a real impact. Your experience will have real value and meaning.

Poverty Tourism and the Fathom Travel Deep Impact Initiative

It is my prayer and my hope that future tourists visiting the Dominican Republic as part of the Fathom Impact Travel Experience do not treat their activities as opportunities to exploit the Dominicans. I hope they remain respectful by not capturing pictures without permission. I hope they don’t spend their time just observing the poor. I hope they spend their time genuinely helping and interacting with Dominicans as individuals both honoring their dignity and showing them the respect they deserve.  Unfortunately, despite training and encouragement from our impact guides on ways to act with empathy, I saw individuals engaging in poverty tourism  on our first impact activity. We delivered water filters to families in a local community. My fellow travelers were eagerly taking pictures and filming video of the families and their homes without permission. Think about how you would feel if someone came up to your house while you were sitting on your front porch and started taking pictures of you. Agreeing to accept aid, the aid you desperately need to improve the health and living conditions of your family,  should not be perceived as an open invitation for the giver to exploit your situation and inflate their own spirit of altruism.

How do you feel about poverty tourism?

It is one thing if you happen to interact with impoverished people and areas during the natural course of your travel. If you show all people respect and honor their dignity.  It is an entirely different beast altogether to seek out the poor so you can bring home a souvenir photograph and exercise your pity muscles. How do you feel about poverty tourism? Do you see poverty tourism as a learning experience or simply as  exploitative gawking?

39 Comments

This is a great read. I appreciate you sharing this with us!

haven’t heard of people doing it

I had never heard of poverty tourism until I read your post. Thanks for educating me.

Agreed. I lived in a developing country for a few years and saw a lot of people who went there just to taste the lifestyle. Sadly, they almost never realized the damage they did. Many would carry bags of candy with them and would toss it out the car window at the village kids as they drove by. It was horrible. They really thought they were helping the kids. When people went to the villages to really help, dig wells, build schools, the kids would bombard them waiting for candy and would be sullen and refuse to help when no candy came…

Unfortunately, this points to a very sad problem. It’s good to know that this sort of thing does occur and can be avoided. Thanks for sharing!

When poverty is objectified, I have to say that it is really deplorable.

Unfortunately, this is everywhere. Great article! Thanks for sharing!

This can’t be condoned and should definitely be stopped!

I think poverty should never be exploited. Very sad!

Good article! Thanks for all the history. And thanks for sharing!

Great article! I don’t have any use for this kind of tourism. Thanks for sharing!

I agree when you are going to your travel destination you do go through impoverish area’s and I would never take a picture. What people have to realize is many of the people that work in your resort or hotel live in these areas.

I hadn’t heard of this term before. My husband and I did honeymoon and do an anniversary trip to Jamaica. Although, we passed by very poor areas I also learned much about their lifestyle from our bus driver. He pointed out homes that were made of concrete and the first floor complete but the second floor just rebar sticking out. He said it would look like to us just a slum but in fact they save their money (no mortgages) and then buy a piece of land and put up the first floor of the home and stop when the money is gone. Then they save for 10-15 more years and finish the rest of the house. I thought how very financially smart where we buy home and mortgage most of it they own it outright from the beginning.

I can’t have very much tolerance for this sort of thing! Thanks for sharing!

I would hope people when they visit places would help people. When we were in Jamaica we bought hand made crafts from people and tipped well.

This is really very sad. Something should be done to stop this.

This is a very detailed and informative post thank you for posting this

I do know that some of these place rely on tourism dollars to survive. I think you have to make good decisions about what’s appropriate.

Poverty tourism is very sad. I agree!

Really agree with you! I think this practice should be stopped.

I think vacationers should stop to think about their actions if they travel to low income destinations. They should try to help rather than exploit.

Many of theses places relay on tourism dollars to support their families. It’s really about how you treat them. The last time we visited Jamaica there was no tipping in the resort but they could accept gifts. We brought lotions and soaps to leave for the housekeepers. We also left a bundle of medicines on our last day. Medication, even aspirin, is very expensive so we left them for our housekeepers.

I sure hope their aren’t people who tour purposely for this. I hope if they are in these places that it’s just an error of judgment.

This is really very sad! Socially unsettling!

On our honeymoon in Jamaica many years ago, we befriended one of the social directors at our resort. She was such an awesome young woman. She talked about how tourism jobs made a huge difference for families. We did get a tour of the city and got an up close view of the extreme poverty. It really touched me how much I have in comparison.

It’s so sad to think people would purposely so this type of thing. Or even if they think it’s ok to do this – it’s not ok.

In Jamaica, on our honeymoon we did a car tour to a shopping area. Our driver, George, drove an old 50s style car and was so interesting and fun. It was such a pleasure we did ask to take a photo with him to never forget him.

I’ve never heard the term poverty tourism and never knew people were doing this. Thank you for the information and I have to agree, it is a disgusting way to treat human beings.

The article lists Detroit as one of the locations. I have seen photos of the old abandoned homes in the Detroit area. It’s just so sad how many there are.

My boss has a friend that visited Mexico to do some mission work and it changes his life. He started a nonprofit that builds and fills libraries in small Mexican towns.

This is something new for me have never heard about it before. Have never been out of the states. So sad

it makes me sad looking at these pictures…………….. because what is it going to be like in a few months after all of this lockdown

I hope someone will be able to help now and down the road. Because I think it will be a long time before people are traveling again

This is truly sad! people should really try to help!

I have Never Heard of Poverty Tourism before! Pretty much an eye opener! Although I hardly ever leave my house, let alone go on the other side of my town, its crazy how different areas are so different. never would have thought that that would be a thing!

I can’t believe that people actually do this

I’ve never heard the phrase poverty tourism before. I agree that it could exploit them.

The last thing in the world I want is to see a bunch of squalor and filth and poverty when I’m on vacation. What the heck is wrong with people. This is why I don’t to to the Caribbean anymore. Sure the all-inclusive resorts are nice but you have to drive by and through these horrible dirty shanty towns. I don’t know why anybody would do that on purpose.

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Feelgood story turns bad as Sky humiliates Indigenous teenager who caught $1m barramundi

Peter Stefanovic interview with teenager who won Northern Territory tourism competition turns sour. Plus: Daily Telegraph embraces Chat GPT

It was the feelgood story of the year from the Northern Territory when 19-year-old Keegan Payne caught a barramundi worth $1m in a competition designed to promote tourism.

“The whole family was shocked – they’re all proud of me,” he told the ABC. “We’re from Katherine, Mum’s from Kakadu.

“It’s pretty hard going for us at the moment with money but now, with a million dollars, don’t have to complain about it.”

Keegan Payne, a 19-year-old from the rural town of Katherine, today becomes the NT's newest millionaire, after snagging the million dollar fish on the Katherine River. https://t.co/IoxNE5Q1lb — ABC News (@abcnews) April 30, 2024

But one live interview, on Sky News Australia , turned into a humiliating experience for the Indigenous teenager when the host, Peter Stefanovic, asked him a question about an incident he was involved in when he was 16.

“There is a claim online that you stole a Polaris Ranger and Polaris quad that you and your friends stole and damaged from a business a few years back. First of all, is that true?” Stefanovic asked.

A shocked Payne, who was sitting in the Darwin Sky News studio, quietly said “yes”.

Pushed to explain himself, Payne said he and his mates “weren’t thinking at the time”, were “still young” and that he regretted it “big time”.

It was excruciating to watch.

Contacted by the Daily Mail , Payne’s former boss Bob Cavanagh said the young man had “always felt so terrible for what he did” and he was an otherwise “good kid”. He had also offered to pay him back.

After the Stefanovic interview, Cavanagh told Sky News reporter Matt Cunningham he did not proceed with police charges at the time, opting instead to talk to the boys and their parents and they agreed to work for free on weekends.

Indigenous leader and Sydney city councillor Yvonne Weldon said she was appalled by the interview.

“They invited him on to talk about his prize catch and then proceeded to put him on the stand for an adolescent misdemeanour,” Weldon said in a LinkedIn post. “In doing so, they’ve shown no regard for his wellbeing and right to privacy.

“Moreover, they have perpetuated a harmful and negative stereotype about Aboriginal young people.”

Naomi Moran, the general manager of the Koori Mail, said “this is what institutionalised discrimination looks and sounds like in mainstream media”.

“A narrative that is so familiar,” Moran said, also on LinkedIn. “That a black person will only be who he once was, rather than who he has become in this country.

“We must continue to call out this representation of our people in mainstream Australian media .”

Sky News did not respond to a request for comment and Stefanovic deleted his social media accounts overnight.

On Friday afternoon Sky News issued a statement that recounted the exchanges in the interview and included an apology to Payne.

“Sky News Australia and Peter Stefanovic apologise to Mr Payne and his family for raising these claims during the live interview about his million dollar win in the fishing competition,” the statement said. ”Mr Stefanovic has reached out to Mr Payne and his family directly to convey his apology.”

The original video had been taken down by Friday afternoon.

Fitz tackled

Sydney Morning Herald sports writers are slugging it out in the paper over the emotive issue of banning the kick-off in NRL matches as a measure to reduce high-impact tackles that may cause concussion.

The SMH’s chief sports writer, Andrew Webster, took aim at Peter FitzSimons on Friday over a column by FitzSimons about moves to prevent head impacts in NRL.

Conceding there is “nothing quite as boring as columnists trading barbs in their allocated space”, Webster wrote he was so hurt by what Fitz had written that he had to respond .

“How dare someone accuse us of not caring about these people, our mates, just so they can fill column inches to prove they’re right and we’re wrong,” Webster said.

“So, in summary, we get it Fitz.

“You hang your journalistic hat on your coverage of concussion and that’s fair enough. You were the first and that will never be forgotten. You deserve credit for fighting the good fight.

“But wouldn’t it be more effective to bring people with you on this concussion journey, instead of continually belittling them?”

What did Fitz say to provoke this angry response? In a column on Thursday headlined “The expert opinion is in: NRL must take on the kick-off concussion issue”, without naming Webster, he ridiculed “people saying that a source of concussions in the NRL, the long kick-off, is no problem, and that all of us who advocate changing it for the sake of sanity are somewhere between engaging in a silly debate and out to destroy the game”.

Webster’s column two days earlier had referred to the kick-off ban proposal as a “silly debate”.

Will Fitz now respond to Webster’s response to his criticism?

Picture imperfect

The executive chairman of News Corp Australia, Michael Miller, has shown an optimistic attitude to artificial intelligence, telling staff last year it would “change our industry” and setting up an AI working group to explore “10 new high-value opportunity areas for AI”.

He also boasted last August that News Corp was producing 3,000 articles a week using generative artificial intelligence.

Now it would appear AI is increasingly being used for illustrations at the Daily Telegraph, replacing newspaper photography or commissioned art. An opinion piece by James O’Doherty about federal funding for roads, published last Friday, was accompanied by an image of a traffic jam snaking though a fictional western Sydney suburb, credited to ChatGPT.

A quick review showed us many of the opinion pieces by O’Doherty, Joe Hildebrand, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt are now illustrated by ChatGPT. We have asked the editor, Ben English, what the paper’s policy is.

Ten stops celebrating

The Ten Network may have won the defamation case brought by Bruce Lehrmann but the network has had little to celebrate since the judgment was handed down on 15 April.

Not only is Ten likely to have to cover millions in legal costs due to Lehrmann being of extremely limited means but its behaviour outside the federal court raised the ire of Justice Michael Lee, who demanded Ten’s lawyers explain themselves before the costs hearing on Wednesday.

Lawyer Justin Quill, who was authorised to comment on the judgment by Ten, said outside the court Ten had been vindicated by the judgment.

Lee, who described the comments as misleading and discourteous, said it was it is “open to argue” that Ten’s conduct “was intended to, or had the tendency to, interfere with the administration of justice in a particular proceeding”.

Three very “contrite” lawyers submitted affidavits to Lee apologising for saying his judgment was a “vindication” and performing a backflip on some evidence given at the trial.

Lisa Wilkinson was heavily criticised in the media for an acceptance speech she gave at the Logies in 2022 for the Project interview with Brittany Higgins. The speech led to the criminal trial in the ACT supreme court for the alleged sexual assault of Higgins being delayed by three months.

Ten’s chief litigation counsel, Tasha Smithies, told the court in February she did not think there were any issues with the Logies acceptance speech, which she had approved.

Lee did not agree, asking Ten why it “repeatedly expressed the view that the Logies speech not only did not have the tendency to interfere with the administration of justice but presented no difficulty whatsoever”.

Smithies told Lee the judgment had been “profound and sobering” and she had a different view now she had reflected on it.

“Since the delivery of the trial judgment I have taken counsel from senior members of the legal profession including Dr Matt Collins AM KC about the advice I gave in relation to the Logies speech, the evidence I gave, and the observations and conclusions about me in the trial judgment,” Smithies said in her affidavit.

“As a result of all of those matters, I believe I’ve developed greater insight into my conduct.”

In a separate claim for costs, Taylor Auerbach’s solicitor Rebekah Giles told the court her client had run up a bill of close to $40,000 for giving evidence. Her fees alone were $900 an hour.

Devil in the detail

The ABC has deleted a social media post which was not marked “analysis” and which gave the impression the public broadcaster’s newsroom was accusing the prime minister of getting it “horribly wrong”.

The article was commentary by Annabel Crabb about Anthony Albanese’s appearance at the domestic violence rally in Canberra.

ANALYSIS: The footage of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attempting to cope with the febrile environment outside Parliament House at Sunday's domestic violence rally is nearly unwatchable, writes Annabel Crabb https://t.co/SgA3LWtxxV — ABC News (@abcnews) May 3, 2024

The new post on X is clearly labelled.

The ABC told Weekly Beast the automated process dropped the word “Analysis” from the post on X.

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The Tiny Nation at the Vanguard of Mining the Ocean Floor

Below the waters of the Cook Islands, population 15,000, lie minerals used to power electric cars. Extracting them could bring riches, but many say it’s a bad idea.

By Pete McKenzie

Reporting from Rarotonga, Cook Islands

Two ships arrived in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific in March of last year. One was a familiar sight: a massive cruise ship, bringing hundreds of tourists to the pristine shores of this nation of 15,000 people. The other, a neon-orange vessel hauling complex scientific equipment, was more unusual.

On a nearby wharf, Prime Minister Mark Brown and many other prominent citizens had gathered to celebrate the smaller boat’s arrival. To Mr. Brown, the cruise ship represented his country’s troubling dependence on tourism. He described the other vessel, owned by an international mining company, as a harbinger of incredible wealth.

The Cook Islands is at the vanguard of a quest to mine the ocean floor for minerals used in electric car batteries. Mining these deposits has never been attempted on a large scale, but their reserves are so vast, proponents argue, that extracting them could power the world’s shift away from fossil fuels.

It would be a transformation for the Cook Islands, as well: Seabed mining could generate tens of billions of dollars for the tiny country, according to a 2019 study . Its per capita income is about $11,000.

But seabed mining faces stiff opposition from environmentalists, who worry that it would harm the ecology of the deep sea. More than 800 scientists have called for a moratorium on the practice, as have France, the United Kingdom and major companies like Google and BMW.

For two years, mining companies have been surveying the feasibility of seabed mining in the Cook Islands’ waters. The government is poised to decide in 2027 whether to allow it, and it faces rising pressure at home and overseas from critics who say it is rushing to embrace an untested practice.

“The government is aggressively promoting deep sea mining,” said Duncan Currie, an adviser to the High Seas Alliance and other international conservation organizations. “They seem to be pursuing seabed mining regardless of adverse effects.”

Mr. Brown insisted that the Cook Islands has not committed to mining.

The criticism “can be annoying, at times,” he said in an interview. Exploring the possibilities of seabed mining, he said, “is part of our journey of sovereign independence.”

In the past, he has pushed back against critics more forcefully.

“The very countries that destroy our planet through decades of profit-driven development, and who to this day continue their profit-driven actions, and neglect their climate change responsibilities, are making demands,” he said at a 2022 conference. “It is patronizing and it implies that we are too dumb or too greedy to know what we are doing.”

The Cook Islands, a 15-island chain that was once a colony of New Zealand, has been self-governing since 1965. Soon after achieving that status, which is short of full independence , international research vessels began exploring the country’s territorial waters, which cover about 756,000 square miles, roughly comparable to Mexico’s landmass.

The researchers found a seabed carpeted with avocado-sized rocks, or nodules, rich in cobalt and manganese. Each nodule grows the thickness of a credit card, roughly, every million years. Until recent technological advances, these rocks were unreachable.

Over the last decade, the Cook Islands has pursued those nodules in fits and starts. In 2012, it created an agency to solicit mining proposals for its own waters. In 2022, it issued permits to three companies to survey the waters and test mining technology.

Other countries that have taken steps to survey their seabeds include Japan and Norway. Most private enterprise is focused on mining in international waters, but regulations to allow this are still being hammered out.

Scouring the ocean floor, supporters argue, is the best way to obtain more of the minerals used in electric vehicle batteries and reduce the world’s reliance on fossil fuels. They add that extracting nodules from the ocean floor with proper controls would cause less environmental harm than open-pit surface mines, which often also disrupt surrounding communities.

Seabed mining — which involve crawling machines scouring the seabed, sucking up rocks and venting silt plumes — terrifies Teina Rongo, a marine biologist who runs an environmental N.G.O. in the Cook Islands’ capital, Avarua, on the island of Rarotonga.

“Our creation story is that the bottom of the ocean is where life began,” he said. “How many creatures are we going to destroy down there if we suck up all that sand?”

Mr. Rongo had just finished teaching a class about climate change for school children at a community center, where straw turtles adorned the walls and scuba gear dripped water onto the floor. Speaking to a reporter about what he called mining’s dangers, he pointed to Nauru, another tiny Pacific nation.

Rich deposits of phosphates, a fertilizer ingredient, once brought vast riches to Nauru, but mismanagement and alleged corruption plunged the nation into poverty. Now its people live in a desolate, strip-mined moonscape.

Alex Herman, the head of the Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority, emphasized that her agency was taking a careful, science-based approach to seabed mining. “The Cook Islands is such a special place, our own paradise,” she said, “and we want to be very mindful about any unintended consequences or impacts arising out of the progression of this sector.”

Still, some critics say Mr. Brown’s government has gotten too cozy with the companies it has allowed to survey its ocean floor. “They’ve both got the same agenda,” said Kelvin Passfield, a director of Te Ipukarea Society, a local environmental group.

Mr. Brown rejected that accusation, but critics say there has been evidence of a revolving door between the two sides.

After the former head of the mining agency, Paul Lynch, resigned, a prospecting company, Cook Islands Cobalt, hired his wife, Shona Lynch, as its top executive in the country.

Ms. Lynch defended her appointment. “I’ve got my own qualifications,” she said. “I’m not a wife that sits at home.”

Then, last year, Mr. Lynch told a local newspaper that another prospector, Moana Minerals, had taken him on a holiday aboard its survey vessel as it sailed through the Panama Canal (he compared it to a “chance to go to the moon”). Mr. Lynch, who has said that he paid for his flights, declined to comment.

Mr. Brown said he was careful not to get close to mining industry leaders. But, he added, as you “set up here, you tend to become part of the family. It’s very personal, the relationships you would have with companies.”

The government says it has put independent observers on survey ships to ensure the reliability of the companies’ data, which officials say will inform the decision about whether to pursue seabed mining.

The public appears to be evenly split over the issue, said Rashneel Kumar, the editor of Cook Islands News , the country’s largest newspaper.

But many think they know what the decision will be. Teresa Manarangi-Trott, a cautious supporter of seabed mining, led a government committee that gathered residents’ views on the practice.

“The government has decided that it’s going to happen, irrespective of what anyone says,” she said.

Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from the Peter M. Acland Foundation, a media charity based in New Zealand.