Abstract
Key words: Rural
tourism, community-participation, development, impacts
RURAL TOURISM AND
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
“Just as the whole Universe is contained in the self, so is India
I INTRODUCTION
Today the
word ‘tourism’ has become synonymous with development. Even the United Nation’s
World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) asserts, with the phenomenal growth of this
industry it has become one of the ‘key driver for socio-economic progress’. The
claims of the industry at the global as well as the national levels are
impressive. ‘Travel & Tourism industry,
like that of the world economy is expected to have gradualgrowth of just 0.5%
in 2010, Travel &tourism economy GDP is likely to grow by3.2% in 2011, with
momentum building from the second half of 2010 and into next year. Real GDP growth for the
Travel & Tourism economy is expectedto be 0.5% in 2010, up from -4.8% in
2009, but to average 4.4% perannum over the coming 10 years’[1].
The table
and figure below show the contribution of the tourism to the total economy
globally as well as nationally.
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CONTRIBUTION OF
TOURISM TO THE TOTAL ECONOMY (2010)
|
|||
|
|
GDP
|
Employment
|
Exports
|
|
WORLD
|
9.2%
|
8.1%
|
6.11%
|
|
|
6.9%
|
6.4%
|
6.7%
|
Source: WTTC , 2010
Traveling has been
endogenous to the human behavior. The growth of the tourism post Second World
War was seen as a source of revenue first by private entrepreneurs and later by
the Governments too. As per Murphy (1985)[2], tourism was viewed as
‘natural renewable’ resource industry, with visitors portrayed coming only to
admire –not-consume-the landscape, monuments and culture of the destination. However
with time it became evident that tourism like any other industry has its
consumption pattern especially it strongly feeds upon the physical and
socio-cultural environment of the area visited.
Source: http://www.wttc.org/eng/Tourism_Research/Economic_Data_Search_Tool/index.php,accessed
on 18 March 10
The line graph above
shows that the cultural and social environment in the country has affected the
contribution of tourism to the economy of the country. Beginning from 1989
onwards the sharp drop was observed in 1993-94 due to the communal riots and
other activities like the ‘Rath yatra’. Attack on WTC twin towers (2001)
and finally recession in 2009 has adversely affected the tourism economy of India
In this paper an attempt
has been made to understand the rural tourism in Indian context and its influence
on the rural society and to understand the ability of tourism to initiate the
development process involving women in rural areasof Jaisalmer district in
Rajasthan. The paper proceeds with a brief concept note on rural tourism and
community participation in it. One of the main purposes of this paper is to
illustrate the economic impacts of tourism related activities in poverty
reduction and installation of belief of people in their own social practices at
the rural destination.
RURAL TOURISM
It is very important to understand the definition of ‘Rural’ to
address the economic and social problems of the area. The term Rural was first used by the Census
Bureau of US in 1874 when it was defined as the population of a country living
outside cities or towns with 8,000 or more inhabitants (Whittaker, 1982)[3].
Since then, this word
‘Rural’ has been variedly defined in different parts of the world. The three components found overlapping in all
the definitions are the geographical location, population density and the
occupation of the inhabitants. Census of India (1991) states rural as the , (i)
a population of less than 5,000 (ii) density of population less than 400 per sq
km and (iii) more than "75 per cent of the working population'' is engaged
in agricultural pursuits. However this definition does not clearly define
rurality of India
Need
for Rural Tourism
The lack of opportunities and lesser ability of the
villagers to absorb them due to educational backwardness make the challenges
much bigger here. The poverty ratio of
the rural area is also higher than that of the urban counterparts. As per the
61st round of NSSO rural poverty ratio is 28.3% as compared to 25.7%
in urban areas. The very nature of tourism industry being labour intensive,
cottage/small scale industry based and its ability to generate the product to
be consumed in local surroundings and its expanded multiplier effects made the
planning commission to earmark tourism as major economic drivers to bring
economic growth in villages of India.Hence, tourism is perceived to become a
key area for generating employment, reducing poverty and enhancing quality of
life in rural areas. The question becomes more viable here, that even if the
tourists start coming to a rural destination because of external efforts, will
the community be able to seek socio-economic gains from the arrivals? To make
this a reality, efforts to build the capacity of the village communities to tap
this potential is also essential otherwise the benefits will leak out to the
big investors outside the rural regions. Various attempts taken up by several
agencies to implement tourism in India, till now have had the stereotype
approach which aims at the overall economic growth of the region through tourism
and then the benefits trickling down to the local poor through multiple
channels like employment etc. For which Christie (2002)[5]
says that, this idea finally leads the ‘policy makers to pay considerable
attention on expansion of tourism sector, but much less to the real issue – to
what extent tourism development contributes to poverty alleviation’ and the
influence of tourism for poverty alleviation remains indirect and non
phenomenal. The efforts to ascertain rural tourism should try to establish a
direct link between the idea of poverty alleviation and tourism. Most important
being, the approach should be pro poor which eventually might lead to
initiating a change in the rural stratification of Indian society.
The rural society in India
RURAL
COMMUNITY AND TOURISM
Until now no serious efforts have
been made to analyze the economic significance of tourism related activities on
the local economy. In the rural areas of Jaisalmer at various small villages,
women can be observed busy in embroidering some motifs, or making puppets and
toys from the worn out ‘Pan Parag’ boxes or counting small pieces of mirrors to
paste on table covers and also taking charge of household activities. The usual
day of the lady of the house begins with daily chores of cooking, cleaning and
fetching water, followed by taking care of the kids in the house. The only leisure
time the lady has for herself is the afternoon. During this time the women of
the village gather and chat along with the activities like knitting,
embroidery, tie and dye or making other items for their house hold needs. With
the growth of tourism industry in Jaisalmer these hand works of the locals have
created a lot of interest amongst the visitors and have become popular as
handicrafts of Jaisalmer.The everyday’s leisure hour has started bringing in
some income to the rural household and has gradually empowered the women. During
the interaction with the women folk of the villages it was observed that they
feel confident to speak in family affairs, like deciding on education of their
girl child. Also decisions related to their kins wedding age also being taken
by the women folk of the village. Although there is a lot of change which is
visible only if observed at close quarters, there is no mechanism to record
that change. The case study below emphasizes the importance of tourism to a
small household income and the minimum needs of the women of the house.
Life of a Puppet Maker in Western Rajasthan
Hot as we can describe is the early
morning of Jaisalmer in June. In a small two room house of mud, the young lady
wakes up not to the sound of the chirping birds but to that of the coughing of
her one year old child. Her day starts
with the usual rituals, but within an hour of her waking up she can be seen
carding the dirty cotton filled in a torn rug bag and giggling with her
siblings. Apart from helping her mother in cooking and cleaning the house
entire day of all the females is utilized in making puppets. The family
comprises of seven members, she being the eldest of the three daughters was
married two years back to a puppet maker’s family in Jaipur. She is staying
with her parents because her family could not fulfill the demands of dowry by
her in-laws. Her brothers leave house
early morning with a few puppet pairs to various tourist destinations
especially ‘Sonar Qila’ so that they are the first ones to approach the
tourists. After the busy day of running after the tourists and selling the
puppets, their next job begins….they are the ones who present the puppet shows
at various hotels in the evenings and after that at night they act as the dholi or the drummer at the hotels for
the night dance parties.
Back at home within the elderly males
a clear division of labour is visible. The eldest one gets the wood (aak wood
required for the puppet making) and other things like the old metal boxes, some
rugs of colorful clothes and the dirty cotton. Most of the things they get from
the kabari wala in the city. Males in the family cut the wood into beautiful
faces and bodies of child, female or male and sometimes of elephants, camel,
parrot etc. Females in the house decorate the faces by colouring and then
putting ornaments and clothes on the body of the puppet. During the hectic day
of the entire family no one has enough time for the coughing sounds which is a
regular feature in every puppet maker’s house. They are busy the whole day with
carding and thrashing of the dirty cotton so most of them are prone to
asthma. Although the presence of this
family may not even be registered as a contributor to the economy but
definitely the economy of their family completely revolves around the tourists
coming to their state. The children in the family have picked up a few English
words ‘goodmorning mam’ , ‘Hello’, ‘cheap puppets’. When asked about education
the lady laughs and says education no good for me, and as the sun sets in the
lady gets back to her household work , hoping the next day she might receive a
letter from her husband conveying he’ll take her back to Jaipur for saawan.
This narrates the story of the one
of the several households who are struggling and making their ends meet with
great difficulty. The issues of health, raw material acquisition and ownership
of the products produced needs to be raised. Introducing tourism in the
villages to fight against the poverty is a good idea only if the community is
geared up to handle the tourism on its own. When the community understands how
to manage and market the village as a rural tourism destination the possibility
of sustainable development of the activity is also ensured. In these situations
women is able to earn through her traditional art and craft practices but the
main money makers are the mediators between the tourists and the producers. As
the producers are unable to buy the raw material on their own, due to financial
constraints, they have to depend upon the middle man in Jaisalmer city for the
raw material. Hence they get meagerly paid as daily wages workers for the
fabulous piece of art they produce. They agree to the terms and conditions of
the mediators because otherwise they’ll be deprived of any earnings that are
making for themselves. The need of the hour is the come up with the measures to
make direct link f the producers with the buyers. On a broader perspective, it
is essential for the implementers of tourism to take into consideration the
views of the local community in the decision making. The gap between the policy
makers and implementers and the ones being affected by these policies should be
reduced. Until and unless the community is geared up to make policies for the benefits
that they should be getting from tourism the whole idea of development through
tourism will not be sustainable. Tourism should be owned and controlled by the
community itself. Before the community gears up to welcome tourists they should
be well versed to weigh benefits and costs that they will be paying once they
expose themselves to the tourism industry. Rural tourism can become a successful model in India
REFERENCES
[1]http://www.wttc.org/bin/pdf/original_pdf_file/2010_exec_summary_final.pdf,
accessed: 18 March 10
[2]Murphy, P. E. (1985),
Tourism and its significance, ‘Tourism a Community Approach’, Section 1,
Methuen New York and London, pp1
[3]
Whittaker, (1982) as in T. C. Ricketts, D. Johnson, Patricia Taylor, (1998), Definitions of Rural: A Handbook for Health
Policy Makers and Researchers, A Technical Issues Paper prepared for the
Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, Health Resources and Services
Administration, Centre for Health Services Research, University of North
Carolina, p.13
[4]http://tourism.gov.in/
accessed on 24 April 2008
[5]Christie, I.T. (2002),
Tourism Growth and Poverty: Framework Conditions for Tourism in Developing
Countries, Tourism Review, Volume 57 (1/4), pp 35-41
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