The Trajectories of Tourism Ventures vis-à-vis Prospects of Poverty Alleviation in South Asia – An Exploratory Reportage

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Poverty is a ubiquitous and prevalent predicament in South Asia which is home to a quarter of the world population and nearly one-third of the poor people in the world. Albeit, there has been a sizeable reduction in the poverty headcount ratio since 1990, about 256 million people remain in absolute poverty in the region. However, the region; is blessed with enthralling natural resources and cultural embodiments. These assets are promoted as tourism products which in turn would fetch foreign as well as domestic earnings. The tourism industry is experiencing sustained and substantial growth, contributing a total of 9.8% to the world GDP and 9.5% to global employment. Despite possessing incredible facets of tourism, South Asian nations haven’t been able to woo its fair share of tourists. The primary aim of this paper is to highlight the potential of tourism as a panacea for poverty issues in the South Asian context. Further, tourism-poverty studies have been mostly focused on African or Southeast Asian regions. This paper is an attempt to bridge the existing gap by assimilating the leads from various dossiers, consultancy reports, and case studies that underpin the potential of tourism in mitigating poverty in South Asia. The present work provides a broad picture of poverty issues in South Asia and also presents an in-depth review of the tourism- poverty linkages. The lacunae in terms of infrastructure, planning, and promotion in the realm of tourism in South Asia are dealt with in this paper.