Tourism and the Millennium Development Goals ─ Tourism, Local Communities and Development

In 2000 United Nations adopted the Millennium Development Goals (UN MDGs), committing the member nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of specific targets with a deadline of 2015. Related to the UN MDGs, tourism is increasingly seen as a promising tool for poverty reduction, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development, for example. Thus, the industry has become an important policy tool for community and regional development in many developing countries and the expectations for tourism and its social and economic outcomes have evolved to a high level. However, there are still many challenges to overcome in the relationship between tourism industry, development and poverty reduction.

This book aims to discuss the promises, challenges and outcomes of tourism in development with a specific aim of drawing together research related to tourism and UN MDGs. The papers discuss what lessons can be learnt and conclusions drawn from the utilisation of tourism for development and poverty reduction. What emerges from this collection is a set of interesting results and notions which both support and challenge the connections between tourism and development and the new role of tourism in global development.

This book is an extended version of a special issue published in Current Issues in Tourism.

Jarkko Saarinen is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oulu, Finland and Research Affiliate at the School of Tourism and Hospitality, University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Chris Rogerson is Professor, School of Tourism & Hospitality, Faculty of Management, University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Haretsebe Manwa is Associate Professor of Tourism in the School of Human and Social Sciences at the North-West University, South Africa.