Poverty alleviation is high on the global agenda being one of the Millennium Development Goals and subsequent Make Poverty History Movement. Tourism being a major source of economic growth especially in developing countries can play a significant role in reducing poverty and will be a central role to tourism development in the future. The incorporation of poverty reduction into tourism development policy has special poignancy for those developing countries where there are natural resources for a tourism industry, whilst simultaneously having significant numbers of their population living in poverty. The use of tourism development for poverty reduction is subsequently held to have significance for developing countries that face economic and social challenges and have limited development alternatives. This is the first book to provide a holistic, explicit and detailed introduction to the relationship of poverty and tourism development within the context of developing countries. The book is divided into three distinct sections, progressing from an evaluation of the key concepts; to the causal factors of poverty; to how tourism is being implemented in policy and practice to reduce poverty and the relationship of tourism and poverty in the future. The theoretical framework inherent to the text is inter-disciplinary, incorporating tourism, geography, politics, economics, environmental studies, development studies, sociology and history literature, to provide the reader with a range of perspectives from which to explore the key issues of the tourism and poverty relationship. It integrates examples and original case studies from varying geographical developing regions including Latin American, Asia and Africa to show practical insights into tourism's role in poverty alleviation. To encourage reflection on main themes address and critical thinking 'Think points', discussion questions and links to further reading are included in each chapter.