Community Initiatives in Achieving Sustainability through Inclusive Tourism Practices

The focus of this paper is to analyze the prospects of community inclusive tourism practices in achieving sustainability of the indigenous sections of the society, which in turn has a positive linkage with the socio economic development of these regions. The trend of development that characterises a region's dependency on tourism, however, has seen the resources of numerous communities utilised by the state and companies with community members receiving marginal benefits. Given the widespread acknowledgement of tourism as a major income generating and revenue earning service sector particularly for developing countries, for sustainable development the actual benefits of tourism should be of, by, for and with the full consent and embrace of the community. Sustainable tourism is a movement that, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, establishes suitable balance between the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of tourism in order to guarantee its long term sustainability. The importance of community-inclusive tourism is its emphasis on active participation and empowerment of local people in the tourism opportunity. This introduces community inclusive tourism, a logical answer to the vices of mass tourism, as a means to develop the local community by blending sustainable tourism, preservation of nature with economic growth.

In our present study we try to focus on the importance of Self Help groups in community inclusive tourism practices using the case study methodology on 'Help Tourism' and analyze their effectiveness in terms of achieving environmental sustainability and community development.