The Spatial Externalities of Tourism Activities in Poverty Reduction

Pablo Ponce, Nathalie Aguirre-Padilla, Cristiana Oliveira, José Álvarez-García and María de la Cruz del Río-Rama
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Nathalie Aguirre-Padilla: School of Economics, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, 11050 Loja, Ecuador
Cristiana Oliveira: European University of the Canary Islands, 38300 Sta. Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
José Álvarez-García: Financial Economy and Accounting Department, Faculty of Business, Finance and Tourism, University of Extremadura, 10071 Caceres, Spain
María de la Cruz del Río-Rama: Business Management and Marketing Department, Faculty of Business Sciences and Tourism, University of Vigo, 32004 Ourense, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 15, 1-17

Abstract: Poverty is one of the main indicators of economic development worldwide, in such a way that one of the Sustainable Development Goals is to eradicate poverty in all its forms worldwide. The objective of this research was to examine the effect of the gross value added (GVA) of tourism on poverty in the 198 contiguous Ecuadorian cantons. The methodology used was the application of a set of spatial econometric models to capture the regional effect of tourism on poverty. Data were obtained from the Central Bank of Ecuador and the National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Under-Employment of the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC). The results show that tourism activities and regional poverty are negatively related; thus, a 1% increase in tourism-related economic activity decreases the regional poverty of the canton itself by 4.31%, and that of neighboring cantons by between 0.7% and 2.4%. The inclusion of the control variables shows that schooling and the mestizo population contribute to reducing the canton’s poverty, since the regions with a high GVA of tourism have high levels of schooling and a mestizo population. Thus, regional poverty increases when the level of schooling increases in neighboring cantons. On the other hand, in cantons with a high Mestizo population, compared to the African-American population, the poverty of the canton and its neighboring regions decreases. Public policy measures which aim at reducing poverty must take into account spatial spills from tourist activity in the cantons.

Keywords: regional poverty; space spills; value added of tourism; spatial econometrics; geographic contiguity; Ecuador (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:15:p:6138-:d:392127

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