People-First Tourism Lab Blog

A quick kudos to our peers in Penn State's Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship program who have just developed a short video pitch for People-First Tourism.  We will use this video pitch to recruit partners in Kenya and Tanzania for the pilot implementation of our system in East Africa.  People-First Tourism video pitch on Youtube Please do check it out and let us all know what you think.  And stay tuned about our efforts to launch the People-First Tourism system in select regions globally this year.

The final chapter in Half the Sky discusses social change movements and lays out four principles that a worldwide women's movement to address inequality, education, and health needs should adhere to: Coalitions should bridge political, religious, and social perspectives; Don't undermine your own credibility by overselling and exaggerating findings - being passionate is a good thing unless you let it cloud your ability to thing and problem solve as objectively as possible; The health and education of boys and men should not be ignored - certain initiatives that target men can be just as beneficial for women;  Groups and individuals should exchange parochial views and actions for a more global focused outlook.  The author adds a fifth principle that should be applied throughout: flexibility.  Do you agree with these principles? What would you adjust or change? And, in general, what can you do about the issues discussed in this boo...

This gives a good snapshot of the state of women in the tourism industry and gives a good overview of the benefits and challenges faced by women who pursue social entrepreneurship and informal sector work in developing areas. Link to PDF of UNWTO's Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010

Using a Nominal Group Technique exercise, tourism students from NC State identified and ranked challenges to the implementation of People-First Tourism in North Carolina.  These students have been thinking about this project since August, and have been reading extensively about business solutions poverty.  They are also talking with people with vulnerable livelihoods about micro-entrepreneurship and they have even been asked to search for tourism micro-businesses in the region that might qualify as People-First.  So...  I think we should take their input seriously.   I am posting this list here in the hope some of you may want to comment with ideas on how to overcome each challenge. Bellow are the challenges in order of importance with the number of votes each item received in parenthesis. How to train micro-entrepreneurs in efficient/effective/timely/affordable ways (8) New micro-businesses will struggle to compete with existing and more established b...

Micro-finance was popularized by Bangladeshi professor Muhammad Yunus with his creation of Grameen Bank that loaned money to impoverished women. Although the idea of helping people help themselves out of poverty has existed for several decades, ease of communication via the internet and attention to the matter afforded by Grameen Bank’s success has brought microcredit to the forefront. In the past decade a variety of similar institutions have emerged or become more prominent, including FINCA , Kiva , and Accion . While microcredit is not a cure-all for poverty alleviation, it is a step in the right direction, providing funding opportunities for able individuals who wish to start or expand a small business.   How does microcredit availability lead to empowerment in developing and developed nations?  Should this strategy be employed in combination with education and health initiatives?  And more importantly, what role will micro-credit likely play in the long term success ...

The importance of education is generally accepted across age, gender, and creed in the developed world. A recent report from the United Nations Girls Education Initiative  celebrates strides that have been made in recent years pertaining to the parity in primary school enrollment of girls and advantages girls have gained over boys in secondary and tertiary education enrollment. Despite gains that can be seen, not only in the developed but also in the developing world, girls, especially in the most economically depressed countries, still face barriers to education. These barriers vary by location and range from distance, cost vs. income, masculinity and violence, low physical access to schools, and overall poverty. The world community should be encouraged by steps forward in the education of girls worldwide, but significant barriers still need to be addressed. From your reading of Half the Sky and other sources, what strategies have been emp...

The assigned chapters for this week consider the role of religion in the oppression of women in developing countries. It is easy for those of us in countries that enjoy religious equality and freedom to equate the issues related to disparities in women’s health and human rights with restrictive religious beliefs. Women living under a theocratically ruled government, as we see in many Islamist countries in the Middle East, face numerous injustices and abuses that are often thought to be prescribed by God. At the same time, the United States, while claiming the idea of religious freedom, has enacted policy based on conservative Christian values that also negatively impact oppressed women in developing countries. It might be valuable to take a step back from what could easily become a circular argument and consider whether it is religion or deeper cultural issues that need to be addressed. A few questions we might ask ourselves: How does religion affect the health and welfare of women in ...

The World Health Organization estimates that 1,500 women die from pregnancy or childbirth related complications every day. Ninety-nine percent of those women reside in developing countries. The oppression and devaluation of women in developing countries is a major factor in this sobering statistic. Despite programs and initiatives that have been created by a number of international organizations (for example the WHO and UN ), maternal health continues to be a burgeoning issue in the fight for women’s equality.  What social issues affect the health of women developing countries? How do you feel about the approach and effectiveness of intervention programs described in Half the Sky ? Drawing from these and other examples you may have found, what is the next step in reducing the maternal mortality rate in developing countries?

As Kristof and WuDunn explain in the first chapters of Half the Sky , women are at the crux of global poverty.  Women are generally the ones who suffer most from poverty and they have crucial roles in childbearing and in managing scarce household resources.  Their oppression is pervasive both in rich and less economically developed countries.  This means that, for example, in poor communities in North Carolina, it is women who are suffering most from the current rise in unemployment, from America's failing health system, from the cost of healthy foods, from... Preliminary results from a report published by UN Women / World Tourism Organization reveal that, under some circumstances, women are able to leverage opportunities provided by tourism to gain agency and improve their and their families' wellbeing.  Have we done enough to understand the causes and consequences of women's oppression?  Have we done enough to understand which circumstances can make touri...

Muhammad Yunus leapt into the global spotlight when he and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for microlending efforts in Bangladesh. What most people do not realize, however, is that Yunus had been working to alleviate poverty in his home country since 1976, when he created the Grameen Bank. He has since launched more than 25 separate initiatives aimed at this objective. In his 2007 book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism , the economist presents his most recent and potentially world-changing idea: Social Business. His idea of Social Business is relatively simple, yet quite bold. A Social Business is a fully functioning enterprise aimed at a social good rather than profit-maximization. “A social business is not a charity. It is a business in every sense. It has to recover its full costs while achieving its social objective. When you are running a business, you think differently and work differently than w...

In Europe rural tourism is dominated by small enterprises, most of them in the form of independent family-owned businesses and there is a multi-actor complexity of the destination that needs to be taken into account.  Global brands, multinational retailers, and tour operators have been exerting a growing pressure on small and medium enterprises, which are facing difficulties in forming a unique destination image and are struggling to sell their products widely. In this context, new forms of interaction between different tourism stakeholders have emerged recently.  These include actors from the public and private sector, as well as local populations and entrepreneurs - all with common interest in the development and development of tourism destination networks. Joining forces with multiple partners permits the integration of resources and creation of more comprehensive offerings thereby improving the effectiveness of marketing strategies.  Such a collaborative approach to...

"Much of the criticism of economic globalization has centered on factory labor abuses.  But the majority of the world's poor are not employed in factories; they are self employed - as peasant farmers, rural peddlers, urban hawkers, and small producers, usually involved in agriculture and small trade in the worlds vast 'informal' economy. Social entrepreneurs seeking to alleviate poverty among this target group usually begin by asking: How can we help these small producers benefit more from their trade and productive activities?" (p. 156) Bornstein, D. (2007). How to change the World. Oxford. So... how can we help small tourism entrepreneurs benefit more from their work?  Are there frugal ways to help micro-entrepreneurs network with each other to share know-how and engender a collective consciousness and bargaining power?  Can information technologies be used to provide micro-entrepreneurs with direct access to markets?  Can clusters of micro-entrepreneurs com...

A manuscript describing the concept-testing of People-First Tourism in rural South Africa was selected by Jafar Jafari for inclusion on the book " TOURISM STRATEGIES: Development, Governance, Climate Change " to be published by UNWTO and the University of Algarve.  In this manuscript, we report findings from fieldwork in the Gauteng and Limpopo provinces - the study revealed that vulnerable residents in peri-urban and rural communities use cellphones widely socially and to support their livelihoods; many are involved in some form of entrepreneurial activity targeting other members in their community; the most critical challenges to their ability to raise from poverty and dependence through micro-entrepreneurship are access to micro-credit and access to markets outside their immediate ties/community.  We will announce when the book is published and available, but we can send a pdf copy of manuscript upon request.

People-First Tourism has a page on Twitter.  We post thoughts about social entrepreneurship, human development disparities, travel trends, progress on the project, etc.  Visit twitter.com/PeopleFirstTrsm to become a P1T follower.

This week our colleagues at NC State's ITng accomplished the first step in developing the beta version of the People-First Tourism Marketplace, an open source web-based IT system designed to mediate interactions between networks of tourists and networks of micro-entrepreneurs.  With this system, tourists will be able to browse lists of People-First Entrepreneurs online (even with smart-phones) and entrepreneurs will respond to their inquiries using the simplest cell-phones. This step consisted in writing a detailed "Statement of Requirements" that will inform their programming work during the next couple months.  This document is available to your perusal at http://bit.ly/jg0LDq    Please do let us know what you think by contacting us directly or posting comments to this blog. Cheers,   Duarte

Today I had the pleasure of presenting the People-First Tourism concept to students in a colleague's World Forestry class with engaging students from all across the NC State campus.  While their academic backgrounds varied from social sciences to biological sciences and engineering, they all seemed captivated by our attempts to identify a people-centered model for community development and environmental conservation.  I've invited them to visit this blog and voice their impressions, advice and questions.  Can't wait to see what they say! The People-First community is growing  :-)   Duarte PS:  In Shangri-La, Yunnan, PRC, Tibetan communities had to quickly create cooperative tourism and non-timber forest product businesses to adapt to the government's prohibition of logging in the headwaters of the Yangtze river.

Last Tuesday, April 5th I had the pleasure of participating in a panel presentation titled "Sparking Social Change" at Harvard's Graduate School of Design; the co-presenters were Marshall Ganz (prof of Public Policy at the Kennedy School) and Maurice Cox (prof of Architecture at UVa and former mayor of Charlottesville).  In this event, we discussed ways to engender change to favor the most vulnerable segments of society.  Maurice Cox spoke about the importance of building trust with communities and of identifying and empowering community champions or change agents.  Marshall Ganz elaborated on process and challenges in organizing social change;  some of his most poignant comments included: "Don't help people - lead and organize them for social change." "In a healthy democracy, equality of voice must compensate for innequality of resources." "Those with power have all the resources.  Don't wait until you get the resources, be resourceful...

Hi folks... in class this week we talked about the good, bad, and ugly aspects of tourism.  As you know, a number of us are trying to find ways to make tourism helpful to the most vulnerable people in the State.  You are experts in all things North Carolinian :-), so I would ask you to please drop ideas on how we might engage poor North Carolinians in small tourism businesses - so that they can make some income and have better control over their lives.  Insightful comments will merit extra credit!  Thanks for your help.   Duarte

A number of us, faculty and students in tourism, community development, and environmental conservation, have been interested in examining ways to use tourism as a force to help marginalized communities gain improved well-being and self-determination while also improving their often eroded relationships with the natural environment.  We are constantly faced with limitations in dominant tourism paradigms (e.g., eco-tourism, sustainable tourism, pro-poor tourism), so we decided to think of a new way to approach tourism.  Whence "People-First Tourism!" People-First because we think the focus of our efforts must be on the development of human beings - perhaps through the creation of improved eco-dependent livelihoods that will then elicit pro-conservation attitudes and behaviors.  This directive is influenced by Amartya Sen's assertion that development is more than improved access to income and should instead be seen as individuals' freedom to pursue fulfilling lives....

Today I am in Delhi discussing the merits and challenges of the People-First Tourism Cooperatives concept  with a group of students in TERI's Masters of Sustainable Development Practice.  Here's the advice they have for us.  Thank you for your input folks,   Duarte