Tourism Development and Multidimensional Poverty Alleviation

Abstract

Tourism development is often used as a strategy to fight poverty, but in the tourism literature it remains controversial as a tool for poverty alleviation in a poor region. This study adopts a multidimensional framework to measure regional poverty. Specifically, we examine four dimensions, including economics, education, social security, and medical service, to reflect poverty alleviation for a region. Then we establish econometric models to explore the link between tourism and poverty alleviation. The result shows that tourism development has a positive influence on multidimensional poverty alleviation in 73 counties in Guizhou province, a typically poor region in China. The consideration of the multidimensional nature of poverty in this study is more convictive to conclude that tourism can reduce poverty. This study further demonstrates that political pressure, indicated by the time period near the end of the fight-against-poverty campaign and by whether a county has red-culture heritages, affects tourism-led poverty alleviation in China.