Abstract
It is widely accepted that tourism, given the right conditions, can be an important instrument of economic growth and a means of improving the quality of life for the societies in which it is implemented, particularly in developing territories. International financial institutions are aware of the role that tourism can play in this regard and, accordingly, have included it within their strategies to further sustainable development and financial inclusion. The World Bank is one of the institutions working to foster tourism, although, interestingly, it only began working in this area very recently (2016). This paper analyses the role of the World Bank in the inclusive financing of tourism as an instrument of sustainable development and compares it with the finance allocated to another four sectors in the branch of trade and industry. To this end, using a system of indicators previously tested in the literature, it analyses a total of ninety-two projects directly related with tourism, trade, manufacture, services, and housing construction activity. The results obtained, when compared to the finance allocated to other sectors of trade and industry (to which tourism also belongs), indicate that the World Bank’s financing of tourism could sharpen its focus on financial inclusion, which would ensure greater efficiency and efficacy in the attainment of its poverty reduction and development goals.
Highlights
IntroductionLópez and Esteban [9] argue that sustainable tourism offers destinations a hugely important strategic opportunity
Tourism is an activity that can contribute to development and poverty reduction in certain developing economies, especially in countries with the right potential and an appropriate strategic approach geared towards sustainability [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8].López and Esteban [9] argue that sustainable tourism offers destinations a hugely important strategic opportunity
Using the tool developed by Carrillo-Hidalgo and Pulido-Fernández [18] to measure the financial inclusion orientation of projects that could influence tourism, financed by international financial institutions (Table 1), we obtained from the WB webpage all the required data about the projects financed in the housing construction, manufacture, services, tourism and trade sectors, since 2016, when tourism was formally established as a fundamental sector in which action needed to be taken in order to achieve its development and poverty reduction goals
Summary
López and Esteban [9] argue that sustainable tourism offers destinations a hugely important strategic opportunity. These authors signal that sustainable tourism development, in its three dimensions (economic, social, and environmental), dynamically integrates endogenous and exogenous resources, which, if managed correctly, can be a focus for social, economic, environmental and cultural benefits. The important thing is to ensure that sustainable development derived from tourism is possible in the medium to long term, avoiding short-term models of tourism development that do not respect the environment or local culture, break the harmony of socioeconomic development, or accelerate the depletion of resources. The percentage of unbanked adults declined between 2011 and 2014, from 49% to 38% [13], and between 2014 and 2017, from 2000 million to 1700 million people [14]
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