Tourism, Development and Inequality: The Case of Tanzania

Abstract

For most of the post‐WWII era, scholars have attempted to understand, define, and measure development. A large and growing body of work has in fact investigated its causes and the consequences and has dissented as to whether tourism represents a proper determinant of growth and development. Yet, while scholars have started investigating the contribution that tourism can make to economic growth and development from the 1970s onward, considerably less attention has been paid to assessing whether tourism‐induced growth is pro‐poor or not—that is, whether tourism‐induced growth and development contribute to the reduction of poverty and income inequality. Building on data collected from several institutional sources and on the insights gathered in the course of several interviews with the officials from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, we wish to investigate the relationship between the development of the tourism industry, economic development, employment and income inequality in Tanzania.

Growth, Employment, Poverty and Inequality in Tanzania

“…Our findings are generally consistent with what Kinyondo and Pelizzo (2015) reported. Many years of economic growth went along with an impressive expansion of the labor force.…”

“…These data also sustain the claim that the economic growth, the creation of wealth and employment had little to not impact on income inequality. Worse, as Kinyondo and Pelizzo (2015) reported in their article, several years of rapid economic growth -from 2001-02 to 2007did not affect at all the overall level of inequality in the country. 6…”

“…In a paper on the tourism, employment and inequality, Kinyondo and Pelizzo (2015) noted that the development or the growth of the tourism industry created wealth, created employment, but failed to contribute to reducing poverty and inequality.…”

Achieving Development In Destinations: Effects Of Tourism On Poverty, Inequality, And Quality Of Life

“…Labor force participation's effect on poverty remained significant and positive, and labor force participation's effect on HDI remained significant and negative. This supports the explanation presented above based on the findings of Kinyondo and Pelizzo (2015) that low wage tourism jobs cause the emergence of the working poor. The strength of the positive effect of labor force participation on poverty grew from the result in the full data set though, which means that for one unit of change in labor force, poverty will grow more in Africa than in other regions.…”

“…Further analysis into this result shows that the correlation coefficients for labor force and poverty and labor force and HDI are far higher in Africa than in all other regions of the world. One explanation for this can be found in Kinyondo and Pelizzo's (2015) writing that the jobs created by tourism are low wage jobs that contribute to the emergence of the working poor.…”