There is a big conflict between current reality and goals of sustainable tourism development. One of the key issues that led to the rise of the need for the sustainable tourism development was leakage of revenue from the tourism destinations. This leakage was/is due to the very simple reason that the major enterprises are owned by non-locals. The profits generated from the tourism activities are not reinvested in the area due to obvious reasons. Therefore, the profit generation does not ensure any income/investment/employment multiplier effect in the region.

Coupled with this, the skilled manpower required for running the enterprises are not easily available within the region. Again, the non-locals skilled manpower engaged for running the show, sent back a substantial portion of their earning to their native places as remittance. The locals are mostly engaged in works that require lesser aptitude and therefore live at a threshold level only. That too, their number constitute a small portion of the local households. Most of the members of the local communities are engaged in some other activities and in most of the cases these activities are lowly paid.

To avoid this situation, the entrepreneurs and the investors need to belong from the local region. In most of the cases its difficult to find investors in these areas. However, lets assume that local investment is possible and available. Even it does not solve the problem. Anyone who is capable of investing such amount for any particular services, will have his own agenda and the profit generated in such situation will be used to fulfill his agenda rather than the interest of the community. Thus, the percolation of benefits to the grass root level does not seem to be the possible outcome even if the revenue does not get leaked from the region.

So, where is the plausible model for developing sustainable tourism? Do we ultimately depend on “Small is Beautiful”? Only the small scale activities are more suitable for the concept of sustainable tourism? Perhaps the answer lies in more real life research on several areas representing various characteristics of tourism activities. This will enable us to come up with viable models for sustainable tourism.

Last 5 posts by driptodada

• Forecasts of Inbound Tourism to India for 2009 and 2010 – A brief Analysis - December 30th, 2009
• Rural Electrification: Role of Decentralized Distributed Generation - September 15th, 2009
• A Corporate Social Responsibility Model for Hospitality Sector - August 8th, 2009
• A Win-Win Model for Tour Operators to Promote Sustainable Tourism - August 1st, 2009
• The Conflict between Goals of Sustainable Tourism Development and Present Reality - July 17th, 2009

Tags: multiplier effects, revenue leakage, sustainable tourism, tourism investment

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.