A tour through Manila's infamous Smokey Mountain slum

Poverty tourism is a small but growing sector of the the tourism industry wherein primarily wealthy western tourists visit the poorest places on earth, most of which are in the developing world. Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Nairobi and Johannesburg are perhaps the most popular locations for these trips, but a new tour was recently setup in Manila, the Filipino capital well-known for chaos, congestion and inequality.

Manila isn't the poorest city on earth but it is the most densely populated with about half of it's residents living in slums. One of the most remarkable is Smokey Mountain, a community literally situated on a garbage dump.

This is where Smokey Tours, a local nonprofit, offers to take tourists for a small fee.

Not surprisingly, poverty tourism is controversial. Critics have labeled these tours degrading. While supporters contend that they promote social awareness and help the local economy.

We wanted to find out for ourselves if Slum tourism really did distill poverty into entertainment or if there was more to it.

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