Pro-poor tourism: from leakages to linkages. A conceptual framework for creating linkages between the accommodation sector and ‘poor’ neighbouring communities

The concept of pro-poor tourism (PPT) has in recent years received attention from academia, key industry and donor organisations. While several ‘How to…?’ manuals have been written, little emphasis has so far been given to situating the PPT debate within the general literature on tourism and development. This paper contributes to the PPT debate by linking macro-economic concepts such as leakages and multipliers to micro-economic action opportunities for the mainstream accommodation sector in developing countries. As such it brings together the well-established tourism literature on economic impacts on the macro level with the more recent PPT literature that focuses on action on the ground. A conceptual framework for analysing and developing linkages between the accommodation sector and ‘poor’ neighbouring communities is suggested. This framework is based deductively on a critical review of the literature, coupled with first-hand experience in PPT action-research. It is suggested that PPT action opportunities encompass both core and non-core activities within the accommodation sector. Bringing together a wide range of past and present research, four types of potential linkages are proposed which are (1) employment; (2) sourcing and procurement; (3) SMME development and outsourcing; and (4) other types of partnerships such as donations.