Tourism and poverty relief

This paper examines the issue of how tourism affects poverty in the context of its effects on an economy as a whole and on particular sectors within it. A framework for analyzing the channels through which tourism influences different households is developed, and a computable general equilibrium model of the Brazilian economy is used to examine the economic impact and distributional impacts of tourism in the country. It is shown that the effects on all income groups are positive. The lowest income households benefit but by less than some higher income groups. Policies that could redistribute greater shares of the revenue to the poor are considered.