Poverty alleviation through tourism: a rapid assessment approach

The past decade has seen a considerable body of literature emerge recognising the potential for tourism to contribute to the elimination of poverty. That said, there is candid agreement regarding the need for further research in this area. Of interest to the study reported in this paper is the\ud apparent lack of progress from case study reporting to the development of applications or tools designed to facilitate best practice application in the field. To date where interventions have occurred they have not been inexpensive. The underlying premise of this study therefore lies in the\ud view that if the tourism sector is to contribute to poverty alleviation then cost effective and timely methods of identifying ways to achieve this need to be developed. The objective of this paper is to review the design and testing of a rapid assessment (RAJ procedure designed to address the divide between research in this field and its appropriate application. To that end this paper introduces RA methods, followed by a summary of their use in tourism settings to date. An overview of the RA designed as part of this study is then provided. The RA methodology introduced in this paper has been tested in one location. The length of this paper, however, precludes the inclusion of the\ud findings