ABSTRACT
The Millennium Development Goals were established in 2000 by the United Nations and targeted for achievement by 2015. Since their adoption the international economic outlook, which affects their performance, has been radically transformed by a number of events. Among others, the World Bank (2011) acknowledges that the global economic and financial crisis has slowed the tempo of poverty reduction in the Global South and correspondingly, of progress towards achieving several of the other Millennium Development Goals. Indeed, it anticipates that the effects of global economic recession will continue to affect adversely development prospects and priorities beyond 2015 (World Bank, 2011). Globally, the tourism sector was severely affected by the economic and financial crisis which began in 2008 precipitating a downturn in international tourism arrivals for many (but not all) developing countries. The specific ramifications of this crisis for tourism’s contribution towards the UN MDGs remain so far unexplored, albeit they can be expected negatively to temper expectations for the tourism sector’s contribution to achieving the UN MDG targets by 2015. Individually, the preceding 12 chapters have interrogated various dimensions surrounding the relationship of the tourism sector towards attainment of the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals, and most significantly the industry’s impacts on poverty reduction. Taken together, this collection of material offers a range of differing perspectives on both the past and present contributions of tourism as well as signals of its future potential as well as identifying specific challenges relating to poverty alleviation in the Global South. Overall, the chapters provide a vein of new insights and address a suite of issues around the MDGs which hitherto have received remarkably limited direct attention within existing tourism scholarship.
