Planeta Forum

[planeta]

TOPIC: Are investments in tourism training and infrastructure a viable outlet for migrant remittances?

Request - Please keep your posts brief (recommended: 250 words or less) and focused on this question.

REFERENCES

Tourism and Migration Conference
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/tour/migration.html

Forum Guidelines
http://www.planeta.com/worldforum.html

[planeta]

Remittances are transfers of money by foreign workers to their home countries. The World Bank officially estimates that migrants from developing countries in developed countries sent home more than $223 billion to their families in developing countries in 2005 – a figure more than twice the level of international aid.

The Inter-American Development Bank’s Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) says that remittances in Latin America and the Caribbean will continue to grow in coming years and surpass $100 billion a year by 2010.

Remittances in 2006 Latin American and Caribbean countries last year received some $62.3 billion from its migrants, mostly in North America, Europe and Asia. At $23 billion, Mexico was by far the top recipient of remittances, followed by Brazil ($7.4 billion) and Colombia ($4.6 billion).

The question this topic poses is whether such monies are used for investment in tourism training or infrastructure.

Part of my personal interest is that I live and work in Oaxaca, Mexico -- http://www.planeta.com/oaxaca.html -- a region that has tremendous poverty and migration. Last year we arranged a presentation by Jeff Cohen of Ohio State University in our "Oaxaca Options" speaker series and Jeff talked about his research:

The Oaxaca-US Connection and Remittances
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?id=280

Remittance Outcomes in Rural Oaxaca, Mexico: Challenges, Options - UCSD (PDF)
http://www.ccis-ucsd.org/PUBLICATIONS/wrkg102.pdf

For those who would like more information about remittances, key resources are the evolving Wikipedia entry and the ever-changing collection of news items on Google:

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances

Google News
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=remittances

Remittances to the Caribbean and Latin America to top $100 billion a year by 2010, says IDB - Caribbean Net News
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-546--14-14--.html

[Mary Finn]

Hola, and ¡Saludos desde Quito Ecuador!

On the topic of how immigrants might help improve conditions for communities in their countries of origin through remittances and other means, I recently learned of an organization working in this field, with immigrants to North America from Latin America and the Caribean – The National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC - http://www.nalacc.org)

Their mission is to ¨improve the quality of the immigrant`s communities, both in the United States and in countries of origin.¨ NALACC is a network of over 75 organizations lead by immigrants from LA and the Caribean, who seek to understand the fundamental causes of migration, and to strengthen the leadership and ´transnational civic participation´ of immigrants (e.g., through directed use of remittances), in order to reduce the economic and political pressions that lead locals to migrate.

The group is also cosponsoring what looks like a very interesting Conference for Latin American Migrant Communities (¨El Primer Cumbre de Comunidades Migrantes Latino Americanas¨), to be held in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico, from May 10 to 13th.

Among the goals of the conference are to provide a space for interchange of ideas and experiences ito understand the factors contributing to high immigration levels, and to promote effective home-country development projects and investments financed through remittances.

http://www.cumbredemigrantes.org

Though the topic of tourism is not specifically mentioned, I think these look like interesting resources to understand the links between migration and economic development thru remittances in general, of which tourism could be an important part.

hasta pronto,

Mary

[planeta]

Thanks, Mary

Have we heard anything more about the Cumbre of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities? Are they looking at tourism, migration or both?

[Mary Finn]

Hi Ron,

I never heard back from the Cumbre (which I think is taking place now) in terms of tourism: it seems to be primarily about migration. Hopefully there will be a summary report issued.

[planeta]

Any other comments on investments in tourism training and infrastructure from migrant remittances?