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The Impact Of Tourism In Alleviating Poverty In Nigeria
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CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Tourism is a short term movement of
people to destination outside their residential areas primarily for
leisure recreation, sport and business transactions. There is domestic
and international tourism. Domestic is the movement within one’s state
or country while international involved movement from one’s country to
another. Modern tourist industry in the western world started in the
19th century with the wake of industrial revolution that increased the
ranks of middle classes in Europe and United States and this led to the
increase in number of people found themselves with both the money and
the time to travel.
Tourism world wide reputedly generates an
estimate of 4 trillion dollars annually. Today tourism has become an all
year business. In Nigeria, Owerri Imo State to be precise the impact of
tourism have created job opportunities, and the increase in poverty
alleviation has risen beyond expectation. It is a welcome development
and will increase its impact if more attention is given to it, from all
stakeholders, government etc.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Traditionally the impact of tourism has been measured in terms of its
contribution to gross national product and employment created. Often
tourism overall impact on the economy is estimated by looking at the
effect of tourism expenditure through direct, indirect and induced
spending using a multipher effect approach. Tourism growth is most often
measured through increase in international arrivals, length of stay,
bed occupancy, tourism expenditure and the value of tourism spending.
However, none of these provide any means of determining the scale of the
impact on the poor or even to trends which result from overall growth
or decline on the poor. While in the literature there are references to
the importance of tourism in the least developed countries (LDCs)
developing countries, rural and marginalized areas there is very little
consideration of the impact of tourism on the poor. The assumption has
been that any tourism development will eventually benefit the poor
through the “tickle down†effect. There can be no doubt that tourism
development does employ those in the lower social and economic classes
but then is growing body of evidence that generate low paying and low
status employment. In addition, poorly planned and managed tourism can
destroy ecological system raise the cost of living for local people and
damage social and cultural traditions and life styles.
Until
recently those engaged in tourism development have not sought to
demonstrate the impact of tourism on poverty alleviation the focus has
been on major economic impact and its potential to bring economic growth
to poor and marginalized individuals and communities rather than on
measuring and demonstrating specific impact on poverty.
In the
development community the focus of most interventions has shifted from
identifying ways in which economic growth in developing countries can
contribute to overall development to a much more specific focus on the
alleviation of poverty.
There has been growing realization
that economic growth may not necessarily alleviate poverty and that
policy commitment to alleviate poverty can only be achieved if there is a
specific and concerted effort to raise the well – being of the poor in
developing countries. Within tourism planning and development there was
also been a growing realization that tourism development may not be
alleviating poverty and that proper tourism policies and practice must
be developed. It clear manifestation of this new policy focus at the
international and regional level can be seen in the policies and
programme of various international organization such as the WTO, ESCAP
and ADB.
The millennium development goals are the most recent
and explicit statement of this commitment with an explicit focus on
alleviating and reducing the numbers of people living the extreme
poverty. It is widely recognized in the literature that poverty is
multi- faceted. The poor have low incomes and lower levels of
consumption than those who are not living in poverty. The poor are
characterized by lack of purchasing power in the market and buy human
underdevelopment, they are generally socially excluded and have minimal
access to education, health and other forms of social welfare enjoyed by
others in the society who are not poor, they suffer relative
depravation and are generally marginalized in the decision making
process. They generally lack marketable skills and have few employment
opportunities. The poor lack access to saving and capital and generally
experience high levels of vulnerability to changes in market conditions.
The result is that their basic needs are met and do not have a state of
well being their condition is sometimes referred to as “ill beingâ€
The interest of this research work is aimed at a broader focus to
tourism related poverty alleviation is important because it emphasizes
the multi- faceted nature of poverty and the relevance of looking at the
broad range of impact which tourism may have on livelihoods directing
it focus on tourism Nigeria with more emphasize one Nekede zoo Owerri
Imo state and beyond.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]Tourism is one the largest and fastest growing industries in the world. It is an increasingly important source of income, employment and wealth in many countries. Its rapid expansion has, however, had detrimental environmental (and Scio- cultural) impacts on many regions. In this research I examine the main economic benefits and environmental impacts of tourism and review the development of the international sustainable tourism agenda. While much of international tourism activity takes place wit ... Continue reading---
