Assessing Pro-Poor Tourism principles in practice: Ethnic tourism in northern Thailand and Lao PDR.

Pro-Poor Tourism (PPT) is promoted by certain international organizations as an approach to tourism that benefits poor people and contributes to the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals for global poverty eradication. It is premised on a set of principles that have yet to be adequately tested on the ground for their attainability. Emerging critiques suggest that PPT is based more on rhetoric than reality. In a case study of ethnic tourism in northern Thailand and Lao PDR, I assessed the feasibility of putting PPT principles into practice. Assessment was defined as identifying, primarily through interviews, challenges to achieving the principles in the study region. I documented 13 major challenges and extrapolated implications for PPT as a global strategy. My results indicate that PPT is more of a livelihood supplement than a poverty solution, and that significant hurdles must be overcome before large-scale poverty elimination through ethnic tourism can be realized.--P.ii.