How can social enterprises contribute to sustainable pro-poor tourism development?

ABSTRACT

“Tourism-Assisting the Poor” has been an important approach in anti-poverty strategy. Studies suggest that the conventional tourism model fails to generate benefits for the poor and to some extent enlarges the gap between the poor and the rich, which subsequently causes more social problems. Pro-poor tourism (PPT) is regarded as an alternative model. Precisely targeted assistance to the poor is the key to initiating this model, while the institutional change and implementation mechanism are essential to run it successfully and sustainably. Social entrepreneurship focusing on social values while adopting modern business philosophy has been introduced recently as an instrument in helping disadvantage population. This paper takes the Smangus community in Taiwan as an example to explore the role of social entrepreneurship and social enterprises in PPT development. It also discusses their implications for the anti-poverty practice in other regions including ethnic areas in China.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-poverty
• entrepreneurship
• indigenous
• pro-poor tourism
• social enterprise
• sustainability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.