Further stages of the Investment Redistributive Incentive Model (IRIM) in tourism: towards mainstreaming community-based tourism

Abstract

Poverty and inequality have remained stubborn problems in many countries of the world. In its current form, conventional/mass tourism does not show any wherewithal and ‘desire’ to fight and reduce inequality and poverty, especially in proportion to its value and potential. The recently proposed Investment Redistributive Incentive Model (IRIM) is a new strategic tool in tourism as well as in other sectors with the potential to contribute to redistribution and decreasing poverty and inequality. This article is a conceptual paper that is based on extant (primarily secondary) literature. It expands the IRIM and proposes new successive stages. This implies, firstly, the creation of Locally Controlled Tourism Zones (LOCOTOZ) and, secondly, to model these new tourism zones based on community-based tourism (CBT) principles. Thus, LOCOTOZ are a specific type of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) (thus the nomenclature LOCOTOZ as Special Tourism Zones – STZs) geared towards redistribution and fighting poverty and inequality as their main drivers. Therefore, the article posits LOCOTOZ (or thereafter STZs) and its possible role in redistribution and fighting poverty and inequality.