Although the role of tourism in economic development has long been recognised (Ceballos- Lascurain 1988; De Kadt 1979), its contribution to poverty alleviation is a relatively recent (Holden et al. 2011; UNWTO 2011a) and controversial (Pleumarom 2012) topic in the tourism literature. The literature on the role of tourism has evolved from the expectation in the 1950s-1960s that tourism could contribute to modernisation and that tourism profits would trickle down to alleviate poverty; to the realisation in the 1970s that tourism did not bring about expected economic achievements but instead increased dependency, inefficiency and slower economic growth; to the increased awareness in the 1980s-1990s of the environmental impacts of tourism and the need to involve host communities in tourism development; and to the recognition in the 2000s of the relationship between tourism and poverty alleviation (Holden et al. 2011; Scheyvens 2007; Table 2.2). These development paradigms have influenced the evolution of different forms of tourism, from mass tourism to alternative tourism, sustainable tourism, and PPT. This section reviews the pro-poor capacity of these forms of tourism and discusses the criticisms that have been directed at them with respect to poverty alleviation.