"Tourism can make a difference in rural communities"

Rural 21: Sandra, why is UN Tourism campaigning for rural areas?
Sandra Carvão: More than 80 per cent of people in poverty actually live in rural areas. So for us as a United Nations agency, when we look at tourism as a driver of development, we look at two sides. One is the opportunities the sector holds because it is a growing sector, a sector where people are looking for new destinations. But at the same time, we look at how these areas can develop economic activities. We know that in many regions, agriculture is facing challenges, and that in terms of accessibility and connectivity, these areas often lack infrastructure and services. So our campaign is really about how we can make tourism help rural communities find alternative economic options that actually support them in developing, in retaining population and improving their well-being.

Generally speaking, has the tourism sector already recovered from the pandemic?
Sandra Carvão: Our data for the first seven months of 2024 indicate that we are already at 96 per cent of the values that we had pre-pandemic. So unless there is an unexpected situation, by the end of the year, we will reach the numbers that we had before the pandemic. Actually, developments differ considerably from region to region. Some of them are already virtually on the same level, one example being Europe with a minus of just one per cent, whereas Asia and the Pacific took a little more time to open – they are still around 18 per cent below pre-pandemic. But in general, even regions such as the Middle East are already above their 2019 levels. So the recovery is definitely very consolidated.

What role do rural areas play in the tourism industry?
Sandra Carvão: It’s quite difficult to have a global estimate on this topic because not all countries have the respective information at national level. But for us, it’s also important to think about rural areas as object of diversification of demand, because one of the challenges that countries have is concentration of tourism in certain destinations. So by promoting regional development, the countries can support tourism demand being spread in the territory and thus also taking excess pressure off some destinations.

Has there been a difference in post-pandemic recovery between rural and urban destinations?
Sandra Carvão: Immediately after the pandemic, in 2022/2023, we could definitely observe tourism in areas outside cities growing faster. With the normalisation of the situation we started to see people getting back to cities as well, but the demand for rural areas still continues to grow. However, the Corona crisis was definitely an opportunity for people to discover rural areas – even close to their homes – which probably hadn’t existed for years.

Do you feel that the potential of tourism is sufficiently considered in development cooperation?
Sandra Carvão: No, it is definitely not. We have long been criticising that the budget allocated to tourism is so small. We know that the allocations to other sectors, such as infrastructure, also benefit tourism, but projects related to tourism make up less than one per cent of the Official Development Assistance. This is a pity because it is a multiplier in many countries and regions – and not only in those in the Global South. Even in many developed countries there are many regions that would benefit from further support. 

And that’s why back in 2021, UN Tourism created the programme “Tourism for rural development” ...
Sandra Carvão: Yes, exactly. Rural tourism and development have long been seen as separate issues, but we really wanted a focus on them together, with a wider impact of the sector in terms of overall development.

What experiences have you so far made with the programme?
Sandra Carvão: There are various initiatives which we have initiated in the context of the programme. One is the “Best Tourism Villages”, with which we recognise villages world-wide that are committed to sustainability in economic, social and also environmental terms. We are now in the 4^th edition, with about 200 villages around the world currently, and there will be even more as of mid-November, when we will be announcing the villages recognised this year. One of the important points of the Best Tourism Initiative is that it is not only a recognition of commitment. We actually have a network that continues. Every month we have online activities with the villages, we do master classes with them, we take them to international events to provide them with exposure … It is very interesting to see how the countries create their own networks and how, with this being done, completely different regions of the world get connected to each other, for example when a village from Italy and one from China are learning from one another. 

A few days ago, you launched the Small Grants Programme. What is the notion this is based on?
Sandra Carvão: In the context of our work, we identified challenges which rank higher for these destinations – one of them is access to finance. With this programme, we are aiming very much at civil society organisations and non-governmental organisations on the ground which will actually have access to specific funding for projects. Projects can be financed to up to 20,000 euros of eligible expenses which, at local level, can already make a good difference. But we also want to stimulate entrepreneurship with it.

Are the two programmes related to each other?
Sandra Carvão: Well, these are two separate programmes, but both have the same objective, which is to make sure that we can promote tourism in rural areas. As just mentioned, through our partners, who basically are the local authorities, we have learnt that many of the challenges they are facing have to do with access to finance. And we have also seen that the more we promote rural development, the more governments themselves set the central level, which leads to a change in policy. We can contribute to these destinations enjoying better policies at national level. We know that much of the infrastructure in development, much of the services, much of other areas there is not in the hands of local authorities but is also coordinated by national or subnational, federal authorities. So for us, it is important to have this policy component as well.

“Colourful Cultures” is the first intitiative under the Small Grants Programme, and it focuses on rural artisans and artists in Africa – why that choice?
Sandra Carvão: This pilot is done in collaboration with the TUI Care Foundation. We jointly opted for this topic and the region, first of all because there's a special need to support the continent. Tourism is growing there, but it is still a very small percentage in terms of its share of the continent’s GDP.  At the same time, Africa has such a creative industry. The two sectors can join hands. So we came to an agreement to pilot ten countries – Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, The Gambia, Tunisia and Zambia – and we were accepting project proposals until December 2^nd. In the coming weeks, we are also having info sessions with our Member States in Africa so that they can help spread awareness about the new initiative and civil organisations and NGOs from these countries can apply. Our aim is to really reach the people who are working at grassroot level.

The Small Grants Programme aims at ensuring that projects can have an impact on women and youth …
Sandra Carvão: Yes, because we know that, on the one hand, the demographic challenge in many of the rural areas is very significant. Often tourism exists in these destinations, and the creative component is also there, but there is no effective link between them. So we do hope that the small grants will help to create that connection and give more opportunities to young artisans and artists who are already active in that destination to actually be part of tourism development in a more consistent way.

And why women?
Sandra Carvão: There is still a big, big gender gap, and that gap is especially related to access to financing. We want to facilitate that access. Women make up more than 50 per cent of the workforce in tourism, so we can create opportunities for them in this sector – not only as employees but also as entrepreneurs.

You also mentioned the benefits for communities …
Sandra Carvão: What we're seeing as well is that the sector itself is shifting now, and it is a sector that has grown exponentially, which has a social and a mobility impact on the territories and on the communities. For us it is very important that the communities are at the centre of development, whether it be in an urban setting or in a rural setting. But in the latter, it is even more important because at the end of the day, if you empower the communities, not only will they be able to remain important guardians of traditions and resources; you are also contributing to a country which is more inclusive because you can diminish the differences between rural areas and urban areas in terms of income and access to services.

Are there plans to extend the programme to other continents and topics?
Sandra Carvão: We would definitely love to, and we are looking for partnerships to do this. There's always a learning curve that we hope to incorporate when extending the programme to other regions. It has been conceptualised as a standard programme where we can then partner with different organisations and target either specific topics or specific countries. Given its modular basis, the principles and the conditions are the same, but we can define exactly what intervention makes more sense in which area and really tailor make it with the partner. At the same time, we always consider four pillars, which are environment, social sustainability, economic sustainability and the governance of the destination.

With your support programmes for rural areas, are you focusing more on national or on domestic/local tourists? Which ones are more important?
It depends very much on the destination. We often think that international tourism is a major part of tourism because it is more visual, but in most countries around the world, the percentage of domestic tourists is either similar or in in some cases even higher than that of international tourists. Obviously, for short periods of visits, you have more domestic tourists – it's a question of proximity. But international tourism can also play a role in regions like Europe, where it is easy to move between countries. People looking for rural areas tend to be national. When people travel to a country for the first time, they will perhaps rather tend to visit the cities – unless they have a special interest. We can see this, for example, regarding destinations of paths or routes like the Saint James path here in Spain and France. Or in Japan, where there are a lot of Buddhist paths as well. So people actually going on those routes can then explore different parts of the country as well.

Was it difficult to win the TUI Care foundation as a partner?
No, not at all. They’ve been acting on many projects at community level in numerous parts of the world, and they are committed to working in least developed countries as well, so it was a kind of natural partnership.

What counts for you in this kind of partnership?
At the end of the day, we need to share a common vision and common values, and I think this is where we came together. We both believe tourism can make a difference in communities, and we both believe that empowering people on the ground can be a way to do that.

Sandra Carvão was interviewed by Silvia Richter.