Posted by Sustainable tourism is the buzz word, especially after the Covid 19 pandemic. Recent focus is primarily due to massive income and job loss of the people who were engaged in tourism industry. However, though mostly the focus still remains at the policy level or on paper, hardly any attempt has been made by decision making stakeholders to implement the same at the grass root level. Another key important point is mostly missing on implementation front is how to tackle carbon footprint because of tourism at ground level. When these issues are at top level, it is important to deep drive in micro issues within tourism sector. One such small question is can the homestays be promoted as tool for sustainable tourism? It needs to be analysed from several angles as follows:
– does it promote more employment and income at the grass root level, especially, in remote areas?
– does this enables involvement of local community directly and indirectly?
– does this reduces the carbon foot print significantly compared to other accommodation options?
– Is it capable of protect local culture and ecosystem in which the local populace like to live?
– Is it capable of providing unique experience to the tourists so that they are more learned about restoring local environment and culture?
The list can be longer. We at ACRA is planning a series on these issues to explore whether homestays can be a toll for sustainable tourism in practice or it is a myth that has been though of by stakeholders for various interests of their own. Our endeavour will be to bring out these issues with the help of a survey of homestays across 6 states in India.
I will be glad to hear from my friends interested in the topic and suggest if any micro issue is of interest to them. We will certainly address if it was captured in our survey. Thanks in advance.
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