ABSTRACT
We started this book stating the need to figuratively ‘climb a tree’ for an aerial view of how tourism affects the lives of poor people. Despite a plethora of case studies, academic articles and plans, research has been so piecemeal that we are only now beginning to pull the pieces together robustly enough to answer this basic question. This book is an attempt to synthesize evidence from different destinations, methods and types of impact in order to build a more comprehensive picture. This we have done, by grouping the multiple impacts into three main pathways, and then exploring the evidence for impacts within each pathway.
