18 April 2010

How to boost the development impact of UK tourism

Global tourist spending is 3 times the size of global aid. So the development challenge is to think about how to get as much of this money as possible into the hands of the poorest people.

One way to do this would be to subsidise travel to the poorest countries, perhaps especially amongst the young who are forming lifetime holidaying habits.

David Cameron has recently proposed a new non-military and optional national service scheme for British youth.

In its first year in office, a Tory government would redirect £50m from the government's Prevent Programme, which is designed to prevent extremism, to pay for pilot schemes for 10,000 teenagers. (The Guardian)

That’s £5000 each. How about giving them all a £5000 flight voucher instead, and creating an international service scheme?

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