ABSTRACT

Introduction ........................................................................................... 140 Tourism and Human Development ....................................................... 140 Human Development: The Nexus with Economic Growth and Tourism ................................................................................................. 142 The Human Development Model: The Lack of Opportunities ............. 143 Can Economic Development Improve Human Development in Ecuador? ........................................................................................... 147 Economic Growth and Human Development: A Lopsided Human Development in Ecuador ...................................... 149 Tourism and Human Development: The Power of Overshooting Effects ................................................................................................... 153 Tourism and Human Development in Nicaragua and Costa Rica ........ 156 Tourism with a Human Face: Democratization of The Dollar? ............ 159 References ............................................................................................. 161 Endnotes ................................................................................................ 163

INTRODUCTION

We explore in this chapter the relationship between tourism development and human development from Sen’s perspective revealed in his capability approach. More specifically, we will expand the information base of human development from Sen’s poverty index (S index) to include the human development index (HDI). We noticed in the previous chapter that the S index reveals information regarding the incidence of poverty, how poor is the poor, and how income is distributed among the poor. Incidence, depth, and distribution of income among the poor recounts those among the poor who get more income. The S index provides valuable information with regard to the role of tourism in reaching out to the poor and lifting them out of poverty, as illustrated in the case of Ecuador1.