Scaling Responsible Tourism Niches: Lessons From Microfinance Tourism

A wave of responsible tourism niches has emerged in the last few decades, which not only seek to minimise negative impacts but also utilise tourism to contribute positively in addressing local issues. However, there is very limited literature on the appropriate scaling up strategies for responsible tourism niches to reach their global potential, in order to maximise positive impacts. The paper seeks to address this gap by critically examining a case study of microfinance tourism (MFT) – an emerging responsible tourism niche.
Microfinance is the provision of small-scale financial services for people living in poverty. MFT facilitates an opportunity for tourists to experience microfinance in action by paying a visit to a small group of poor local micro-entrepreneurs in their daily environment. Tourists can enjoy cultural activities, while learning about poverty issues and how the tour profits are used as low or free interest microloans to support local income-generating projects.
Since 2008, 6 MFT organisations have been set up in Mexico, Tanzania, Jordan and Vietnam. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 12 respondents from six MFT organisations across 4 countries to explore their perceptions on the expansion of MFT. Results reveal that those with a local focus utilise branching strategy with strong control, while those with a global focus adopt more flexible affiliation and dissemination strategies to expand MFT. Partly due to these diverse values and strategies, global MFT development was hindered by a lack of positive communication among MFT stakeholders and there is a need to reconcile the differences.