Poverty elimination is an international goal in development assistance, but is not at the heart of the international tourism debate. To date, few tourism initiatives have been driven by poverty objectives, despite substantial intervention in the sector by donors, governments and development organisations. The conventional focus on promoting international tourism to maximise foreign exchange receipts has missed the potential to enhance net benefits and opportunities for the poor.
Commercial reality dictates that there are limits to the extent that tourism can be made pro-poor.
It is a commercial sector driven by business opportunities, not an engine for providing social services to the poor. However there are compelling reasons for focusing efforts on developing pro-poor tourism, not least of which is that it is a massive and growing industry, already affecting millions of the poor, so a marginal improvement could generate substantial benefits. DFID's Tourism Challenge Fund aims to support small projects designed to address these areas. Education Lack of basic literacy and numeracy are fundamental barriers to development and are a main target for DFID programmes. With few exceptions, literacy and numeracy are tackled through publicly funded primary schools.