Impact of the touristic indicators on the poverty rate
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15705155Keywords:
tourism, poverty reduction, income inequality, income distribution, international visitors, economic impact, Gini coefficient.Abstract
Understanding the relationship between poverty and tourism is essential for leveraging tourism as a tool for
poverty alleviation. The core objective of this study is to determine whether tourism has a positive effect on poverty
reduction or whether the development of the industry fails to generate significant changes. This research analyzes the
impact of tourism on reducing both poverty and income inequality, particularly examining how the arrival of international
visitors affects poverty levels and income distribution. The results indicate that income from tourism has alleviated poverty
to a small extent but has not been sufficient to fully address it. Moreover, tourism has clearly failed to reduce inequality
in wealth distribution. These conclusions are supported by several forms of Gini coefficients, which show no substantial
improvement in income inequality as a result of tourism development
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