A Wellness Tourism Initiative to Alleviate Poverty Among Women

This wellness tourism initiative is aimed at helping poor women in developing regions and countries escape from persistent poverty. The initiative is grounded in five key themes: (a) limited opportunities for women, due primarily to social and cultural constraints, to become productive members of the economy; (b) the dramatic growth in special interest travel, especially travel as it relates to health, wellness, and culinary tourism; (c) the increasing use of natural treatments and diets in developed countries to help people cope with stress and other ailments as an alternative to “modern” medicine with its myriad side effects; (d) the popularity of micro credit as a financing vehicle for incubating small businesses; and (e) the integration of the global supply chain making it easy to move materials across borders. At the confluence of these five themes lies an opportunity for poor women to create value with their traditionally endowed skills and abilities. In this concept note, I describe my vision for this idea, briefly go into each of these themes, and suggest how they may be combined in a novel and interesting way to give poor women an opportunity to climb out of poverty by doing well and doing good at the same time.