Is the financing of tourism by international financial institutions inclusive? A proposal for measurement

Abstract

It is acknowledged that tourism can have a great potential for reducing poverty; however, the growth of tourism has stagnated in financially excluded areas because of the difficulty local tourism businesses have in accessing the financial system. International financial institutions advocate the promotion of tourism as a development tool and in the fight against financial exclusion. This paper presents a tool for measuring whether the performance of these organizations is inclusive regarding tourism financing. The results obtained from applying this tool to the analysis of projects in Latin America and the Caribbean show that the financing provided for tourism projects in this region is not inclusive.

Keywords:

• International financial institutions
• tourism
• financial inclusion
• international financing
• indicators

JEL Classification:

• L83
• O19
• Q01
• F35

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Isabel Carrillo-Hidalgo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0914-5084

Juan Ignacio Pulido-Fernández http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9019-726X

Notes

1. In this paper, the term IFIs (Carrillo-Hidalgo & Pulido-Fernández, 2012) is used to refer to global and regional development banks, set up by countries of different regions of the world: World Bank (WB), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Along with the above, the Organization of American States (OAS) is also included.

2. All projects considered are listed and described in Carrillo-Hidalgo (2014, Annex 5): http://ruja.ujaen.es/handle/10953/634

3. “i” = each organization and “j” = each indicator of the tool developed.