Map talk: tourism micro-entrepreneurship and poverty reduction in North Carolina

Tourism is highly advocated as a tool for poverty reduction in both developed and developing countries. Increased tax revenues and employment, and improved infrastructure are often cited as benefits from the growth of tourism.  However, tourism is also often criticized for cultural commodification, leakage of economic benefits, displacement of people from their original habitats, limited participation of host communities, as well as the uneven distribution of benefits.  Tourism micro-entrepreneurship is said to be a good solution to these problems – because micro-entrepreneurship creates income earning opportunities with low entry-barriers appropriate to under-resourced members of the host community.  Moreover, with their involvement in tourism, these community segments gain a place in community decision-making and exert pressure for tourism to develop in more equitable and sustainable ways.

Micro-entrepreneurship is related to the definition of self-employment - performing work for personal profit rather than for wages paid by others. Tourism micro-entrepreneurship refers to situations when there are fewer than 5 employees in a tourism business. Locally, tourism micro-entrepreneurship can help host communities protect their interpretations of local culture, knowledge and expertise by allowing them to present their own unscripted narratives to tourists.  Regionally, tourism micro-entrepreneurship helps diversify destination offerings, which will lead to enhanced regional competitiveness in the constant struggle to attract visitors.  The following maps illustrate the distribution of tourism micro-businesses and the distribution of poverty in North Carolina.

The development of tourism micro-entrepreneurship depends on factors like the local entrepreneurial climate and natural and cultural amenities.  As illustrated in the following maps, in some regions of North Carolina, high concentration of tourism micro-entrepreneurship tends to coexist with high concentration of natural amenities (i.e., national parks, state parks, forests or water resources) and with cultural amenities (i.e., historic places and museums).  The causal relationship between tourism micro-entrepreneurship and poverty is certain to be complex, to also include concentration of resources taxation levels, regulatory environments, availability of basic entrepreneurial skills, and public infrastructure for very small businesses. 

The maps reveal that tourism micro-entrepreneurship clusters did not overlap with counties with high poverty rates.  This finding can have several interpretations:

1) Tourism micro-entrepreneurship may help reduce poverty to some extent so the poverty rate is relatively low where there is higher level of tourism micro-entrepreneurship;

(2) In areas with very high poverty, people are trapped by their severe lack of capital, skills and amenities; which preclude them from starting tourism micro-businesses;

(3) People tend to develop tourism micro-businesses where poverty rate is low to pursue local markets in addition to visitors from other regions.

Interestingly, in the northern part of the inner coastal plain there is a concentration of poverty and of cultural attractions but there are low levels of tourism micro-entrepreneurship.  In my fieldwork in that region (i.e., Warren County) over the last couple years, I learned about rich cultural resources and about some of the barriers that inhibit local cultural tourism micro-entrepreneurship.  Myself, and several of my peers and professors have attempted to enable tourism micro-entrepreneurship in the region (https://www.peoplefirsttourism.com/networks/warren_nc/), with some but very slow progress.  I hope that a combination of geospatial research and persistent fieldwork will gradually advance our understanding of the limitations and potential for tourism micro-entrepreneurship to foster equitable economic development in North Carolina.

Yuchen Mao

Doctoral Student and P1T Research Assistant.