Revisiting the Discourse on Poverty Alleviation Through Tourism: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

Poverty alleviation is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. It has become one of the major concerns for most of the developing countries including India. Tourism is considered as one of the most effective and viable tool for poverty alleviation. Therefore, it becomes critical to understand the tourism-poverty link, if tourism is to be used as a mechanism for reducing poverty. This research is intended to identify various factors of poverty alleviation through tourism; and to study the perception of inhabitants of Leh district of Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir regarding poverty alleviation through tourism and finally to suggest the strategies for pro-poor tourism development in the region. Exploratory factor analysis was done to identify various factors and confirmatory factor analysis was performed to cross validate it. Furthermore, one sample t-test was executed to study the perception of inhabitants on the identified factors. The findings of the study reveal that the tourism plays a significant role in reducing poverty and will help the strategy makers to come up with effective strategies that will promote Pro-poor tourism in study area and other similar regions.

Keywords: Poverty Alleviation, Tourism, Community Development, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh

View PDF