Tourism Policy for Poverty Reduction

This study examines national tourism policies and two provincial tourism strategies of Lao PDR implemented during 1998 to 2010 and tourism strategies for 2020. It argues that poverty reduction has to be started from the policy framework which intentionally facilitating the poor. The discourse reproduces four dimensions of benefit included in tourism policies that can be trickled down to the poor including employment, linkage opportunities, knowledge base, and cultural assets as innovation for destination competitiveness. It can be concluded that those spaces for the poor are formulated under the assumptions of ad hoc policy for the government as a plan for general social economic development rather than focusing on poverty reduction.