TDI believes that carefully planned, tourism contributes to human development, management of natural resources and local governance.
Key cross cutting themes of tourism development are aligned with the Millennium Development Goals including: poverty alleviation, environmental conservation, job creation and MSME development, increase participation of woman in productive activities; awareness and good practices in personal hygiene and food management; improvement of education through training in new skills; and development of partnerships between the public and private sectors.
For a tourism project to be economically sustainable, it should be market- driven (market intelligence), offer added-value (competitive advantage) and have a solid marketing plan. Rural areas, for example, can diversify the use of land and labor, as well as break the seasonality of agricultural production by developing tourism services into their economic mix.
“Women make up to 46% of the tourism labor force, higher than the workforce in general, where 34 - 40% are women. The numbers of women working in tourism vary greatly among countries from 2% up to over 80%. In countries in which tourism is a more mature industry, women’s participation is around 50%”
EuropeAid
