Introduction

This book addresses a critical question facing many aid agencies, academics, governments, tourism organisations and conservation bodies around the world: can tourism work as a tool to overcome poverty? In recent years many proclamations have been made about the actual and potential contributions tourism can make to developing countries, perhaps none more audacious than that of the president of Counterpart International, Lelei LeLaulu, who asserts that tourism represents ‘the largest voluntary transfer of resources from the rich to the poor in history, and for those of us in the development community-tourism is the most potent anti-poverty tool ever’ (eTurboNews 2007-emphasis added).