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...to building research capacity for pro-poor tourism,
a joint project of five universities in South East Asia and Europe.

The aim of the project is to build research capacity to improve tourism´s positive impact on the poor, particularly in the ASEAN region. The partnership includes universities in the UK, Belgium, Indonesia, Lao PDR and Vietnam. Over 24 months the partnership will be evaluating existing research, identifying gaps and holding workshops and exchanges to build capacity in applied research and sharing best practice in research methodology.

The partners are working in teams (of EU and ASEAN partners) to undertake small-scale research projects in Vietnam, Laos and Bali. The teams are investigating established examples of current practise and are developing improved models of good practise in pro-poor tourism.

The outcomes will include conferences, publications, and a web-site, as well as improvements in university curricula.The programme is designed to feed into improvements in pro-poor tourism policy, and to enhance linkages with the aid agencies and tourism industry.

bibliograpy

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news

our project is developing constantly, sometimes at a very fast pace;
this section provides you with news on the most important and interesting developments.

bibliography

we are currently updating the bibliography section -
please come back later

general remarks

Purpose
The project on "Building research capacity for pro poor tourism (PPT)" is designed to identify, test and analyse suitable methods for research in pro poor tourism. It aims to assess the usefulness of the methods on pro poor tourism research and to identify practise examples for use to others. In this sense the project hopes to contribute to the discussion on the practical analysis of field work and at the same time contribute to the wider discussion of PPT tourism research approaches.

Research framework
The "methods testing" is considered to be one of the most important parts of the overall project objectives but is located within a broader project framework of research that focuses on poverty-related issues within the tourism industry in South-East Asia. In essence, the research questions aim to deal with respondents´ perceptions of the benefits of tourism and the negative aspects of tourism. As far as the benefits are concerned: What benefits does tourism bring? Who is benefiting? Who is not benefiting? Are the poor benefiting? What could tourism do for you? What kind of tourists are best for the village/region? What kind of tourists are preferred? What do´s and don´ts are there for tourists? Are respondents involved in creating or implementing policies for tourism? Negatives are basically defined, for purposes of research, as what is disliked by respondents about tourism.

Four key areas were identified and designed to elicit information about what is happening at international, national and local levels. They seek to discover who are ´the poor´, how they are defined and recognised, and whether or not different criteria are used by different groups and individuals. Researchers were asked to focus on:

Definitions of poverty
Do we know who the poor are?
If so how do we know?
How are they?
How do you recognise the poor?
How do perception of the poor differ?
How are the poor defined officially(international, national, local, professions)?

Benefits to the poor from tourism
How are the poor benefiting from tourism and what do they expect?
What could tourism do for you? (Who benefits and who does not?)
What kind of tourists do poor host communities prefer?

Policy
Are there any current policies of using tourism to help the poor, to increase their income?
Are you involved in creation and implementation of tourism policy?

Current situation
What is going on in this area in tourism?
What needs to be done to change tourism to benefit the poor?

The use of different methods clearly brings out strengths and weaknesses.

methodology

methodology

The initial idea of the methodology was to develop a shared research approach and a common analytical framework, which would lead to comparative data sets from three different countries (Indonesia, Laos and Vietnam). However it was clear from the beginning that the issue of comparability could only be explored within limitations for the following reasons:

• The countries and areas of investigation are at different developmental stages. While Indonesia is a practicing democracy, Laos and Vietnam are under socialist rule.
  
• The assessment of research methods which focus on a pro poor tourism angle is relatively new and covers a rather specialised area. Therefore data sets from previous assessments could not be used.
  
• The research teams applied and interpreted the developed framework in different ways according to personal preference and experience.

Research areas
Despite the difficulties in gaining comparable data, field work was carried out in three similar areas of tourism activity in each country (see table):

1. developed tourist area (area which gains major income from tourism)
2. less developed tourist area (area which has some tourism industry but where tourism is not the main source of income)
3. area, that wants to develop tourism but has not started or is at the planning stage (area, which has the potential to develop a tourism industry eitherless developed or developed area)
   

The main concern here was to find out how the tourism industry and tourism policy makers/organisations are dealing with the poor and if the poor would benefit from the industry or from policy implementations. The main focus was given to who benefits and to what was commonly understood as poverty by local residents.

Methods
After the research questions were identified a "method testing kit" was developed which focused on commonly used methods in ethnographic or developmental field work and included the following methods:

1. Desk research - to gain an initial overview of the extent of material available
2. Rapid rural appraisal - was chosen as approached fast tool kit to get to know the area, people and their concerns and informal participation - to add observations, procedures and actions of teams to the research analysis and to give a an opportunity to discuss possible biases in the methods
3. Surveys - to provide some hard data defining who the poor are
4. Semi-narrative/structured interviews - to access first hand information in conversation in order to pursue the topic/idea in more detail
5. Workshops - to exchange information with local researchers and to understand cultural differences in knowledge application
6. Focus groups - to gather first hand information in an interview like manner from a group of people

The Triangulation principle - collecting information from a diverse range of individuals and settings, using a variety of methods (Denzin, 1970) was used as a general guideline. It was agreed that the different methods would be build up gradually, starting off with desk research, followed by interviews, workshop and surveys with different stakeholders and policy decision makers as well as village inhabitants. The focus groups were rated as the culmination of knowledge gathering and informal participation was used to add information and background knowledge.

The initial idea of the methodology was to develop a shared research approach and a common analytical framework, which would lead to comparative data sets from three different countries (Indonesia, Laos and Vietnam).

practicalities

The methodology was developed in several stages.

1. Development of methodology

First ideas were collected at the bidding stage before the actual start of the project by the Uk project team in consultation with the other partners. The first meeting with representatives from all partner organisations started off discussion about the proposed approach and initial corrections, for example concerns about the expectations of comparability of data were added. In this first meeting partners agreed on a work plan and on the methods, which would be used during the field work. The meeting was also used to get to know each other and to exchange knowledge and common working practices in the different fields of expertise of the research teams and to set up the research teams for the field work. The criteria here were:

• creation of international teams with multidisciplinary expertise and a interest in PPT research (see table),
• guided by an individual or a group of local researchers who would organise the field work and two researchers from the other two countries, one from Asia and one from Europe.
• the teams nominated a research team leader who organised the content of the research and ensured the follow up of the research guidelines and who would be the contact for the project manager.

A set of questionnaires/guidelines were developed and agreed during the second partner meeting in Indonesia for use by all research teams. Those Questionnaires were regarded as guidelines during the application of the different methods (see table) and not to be followed slavishly.

A time frame was put in place which would accompany the field work and the writing up of a research activity report was agreed along with the exchange of research diaries among the different research team leaders.

2. Field work

Organisation
The field work was scheduled to have three phases:

1. Before the start of the field work: organisation of research permit and other paper work to carry out research, translation of the research questions into the local language by the local partner organisation (local researcher).
2. Actual field work stage: team leader arrives and organises initial research plan with local partner (where to go when and with whom and who is doing what) and after the second researcher arrives the team sets off to carry out the work.
3. End of field work: developing of analysis schedule and distribution of analysis work among the fellow researchers.

First ideas were collected at the bidding stage before the actual start of the project by the Uk project team in consultation with the other partners

analysis and reflections

This page is under construction. Please come back later.

analysis and reflections

[KEYWORDS: analysis research methods]

[DESCRIPTION: analysis research methods]

good practise

how can research methodology be used most effectively and yield the best results? With the aim of establishing a best practise standard we would like to present a number of case studies of actual applications which have worked especially well.

We are currently revising the latest set of these case studies and will publish them in this section shortly, so please check back here soon.

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gallery & maps

click on images to enlarge.

Images © IICTD and private collection, maps are provided courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.

about us

the project has established a network consisting of five partner organisations in Asia and Europe:

London Metropolitan University

Udayana University

University of Liege

National Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities

National University of Laos

contact IICTD

IICTD
London Metropolitan University
Stapleton House
277-281 Holloway Road
London N7 8HN

tel: +44 (0)20 7133 3035
fax:+44 (0)20 7133 3082

e-mail: iictd@londonmet.ac.uk

links

Asia-Link Europe-Aid Cooperation Office

IICTD - International Institute for Culture, Tourism and Development

London Metropolitan University

National Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam)

National University of Laos

Pro Poor Tourism

Udayana University in Indonesia

University of Liege