Sustainable Tourism in India: An Integrative Approach for Economic Development and Poverty Alleviation

Abstract

In recent decades, the concept of pro-poor tourism has emerged as one of the integral mechanisms that benefit the poor and the underprivileged sections of society. Eradication of poverty is a top priority of human development that is mentioned in the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Given the expansion of the tourism industry at present in India, the sustainability of this sector is significant, particularly in the rural and remote areas for the facilitation of income-generating opportunities to these vulnerable sections of society at large. The present research study aims to find out the various factors that determine the growth and expansion of the Indian tourism industry and to evaluate how such factors correlate with the alleviation of poverty in India. A panel regression is fitted to find out the nexus between the growth and expansion of the tourism industry in India and its impact on poverty alleviation standards. The selected dimensions, viz. number of tourists visited, per capita income at the state level, index of poverty as measured by headcount ratio, inequality index measured by GINI coefficient, economic specific variables such as literacy rate and infant mortality rate, and state of instability in states measured as by frequency of incidence of crimes in the region are being employed in the study. The estimated model reveals that the effects of tourism development have significant and bountiful outcomes in reducing poverty in India during the study period 2005–2018, as indicated by the estimated coefficient value of (−0.0655), controlling for the selected economic and state/region-specific variables.

Citation

Shukla, P.S. and Shamurailatpam, S.D. (2024), "Sustainable Tourism in India: An Integrative Approach for Economic Development and Poverty Alleviation", Sharma, A. and Arora, S. (Ed.) Strategic Tourism Planning for Communities (Building the Future of Tourism), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 121-141. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83549-015-020241011