Strategies Of Sustainable Tourism In Maharashtra Tourism Essay

Tourism is concerned with pleasure holidays, travel going or arriving somewhere. These are the motivation that makes people leave their normal place of work and residence for short term temporary visits to other places not more than one consecutive year. Tourism is generally considered to be beneficial activity and for most people an ideal land use activity; a non-polluting, job generating and foreign exchange earning industry. However, years of sobering experiences have led to the realisation that mass and uncontrolled movement of people creates certain social, economic, political and environmental impacts of the destinations. These impacts vary as per the type of tourism promoted and can be both beneficial as well as adverse. This essay discusses and defines the key term sustainability and competiveness and how they can be use as a strategy to develop tourism in Maharashtra, which is one of top ranked tourist destination in India.

The key word in the analysis of tourism is sustainability, a notion that at its most basic summarizes the growing concern for the environment and natural resources, though sustainability has also had increasing resonance in social and economic issues in tourist destinations.

The destination has played an important role in tourism. It is a mix product of the tourism which offers integrated experiences to its tourist and consumers. Basically destination are regarded as well define geographical areas such as a town, a city, a country, a nation or as whole world where tourist stay at least one overnight (WTO, 2007). On the other hand it is growing subjectively by the tourist and consumers depending on their flexible demands as when they plan their itinerary on the basis of culture background of the destination and the purpose of visits. It may be educational, business, or vacations to experience importance of the place. Such as a Paris as a destination for German business travellers, for Leisure Japanese, Europe may be a destination within their specified period of a trip (Vlahovic, S., 2010). Apart from this A Jungle may be a destination for scientist and researchers who involve in nature related study simultaneously it is destination for people who like to visit Jungle in their vacation such as Jungle Safari. In addition to it ‘tourist destination also helps in generating revenue to the government as well as private sector which is a significant factor while considering tourism’ (Edward, J., 2010).******************

Since beginning destinations are divided by manmade borders such as geographically and politically, which does not considering the consumer preferences or tourist industry functions (Vlahovic, S., 2010). Whereas Holloway and Taylor (2006) say that all destinations share certain features such as the place of attraction, services and facilities and accessibility of the destination.

Currently in all worlds destination a high competition can be seen. Due to mobility and accessibility of the tourist destination around the world, also emerging changes in tourist destinations with technology, infrastructure, and communication. ‘Therefore destination cannot escape the competitive challenges by the justification that the task is too difficult’ (Vlahovic, S., 2010).

Mostly, destination are varied in nature, these are not always with equal potential, some have lot of potential resources competitive advantages, and some have limited natural resources and infrastructure to support the tourism development in particular destination (Ritchie and Crouch 2000 cited McCartney et al.2008). According to McCartney et al., 2008, there were question between Ritchie and crouch 2000, that whether destination are by born or created? The answer is in question itself. Further Ritchie and Crouch (2000) mention the definition of destination competitiveness and how it’s related to sustainability as firstly ‘its ability to increase tourism expenditure, to increasingly attract visitors while providing them with satisfying memorable experiences and to do so in a profitable way, while enhancing the well-being of destination residents and preserving the natural capital of the destination for future generations’.

As a result of this it can be assume that destination competitiveness in tourism has several sustainability dimensions such as economic, social, cultural and environmental. Competitiveness has become a central point of tourism policy. As its increases and tourism activity become stronger, so there is need to put some limelight on improving the competitiveness by creating a constitutional outline to examine, to control and enhance quality and effectiveness in the industry and to protect (to sustain) resources (Vlahovic, S., 2010).

Sustainability has defined by Bruntland’s Report (1987 cited Cooper et al., 2008) that “meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs” So to understand the sustainability of resources and how much potential available in destination, there is necessitate to do SWOT as well as PESTLE (Tribe,1995) analysis of the destination from internal and external then require to focus on essential innovative strategy to come up from weakness and threats and to strengthen it to create more opportunity in the future.

Strategy has defined by Quinn 1980, “It is an outline of a plan that combines organizations major goals, policies and sequence of action in to a cohesive whole”, whilst strategy is the way and scope of an organization, it has two phases ‘one short term about three year and second long term more than 5 year (Cooper et al,. 2008) preferably which matches its resources to its changing demand from the surrounding particularly in destination markets to tourists and consumers so as to meet stake holders opportunity (Tribe, 1997).

Pike and Ryan (2004 cited McCartney, et al, 2008) said that ‘competitive strategy through comparing cognitive, affective and conative perceptions of the destination.’ They concluded in their studies that “effective positioning requires a succinct, focused and consistent message. Positioning analysis requires an understanding of how a destination is perceived to perform on attributes deemed important to the target market, relative to the competition”. On the other side in terms of income and expansion of a national tourism industry in the global market of develop and developing countries, which could therefore raise the real income of its citizens and develop its standard of living (Hong, 2008).

Therefore, high demand in competitive strategy or policies require proper and better education and training about the sustainability tourism through academic orientation programmes, government and private organization, also through various information channels (Harris et al 2002).

The concept of Sustainability strategy has become in practice by World Conservation Strategy (WCS) in 1980. It was commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which jointly with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) provided the financial Support for its operations. The main strategy has aim to make basic structure and legal guideline to develop and developing country to explain the involvement of living resources conservation to human survival such as green house gas effect, emission, destruction, degradation, extinction of flora and fauna species, pollution, genetic diversity and soil erosion and to sustainable development identifies the main concern of conservation problem and the main requirements for dealing with them and proposes ways for effective accomplishing the strategy’s goal (NSSD, 1980).

There are mainly four pillars of sustainable strategies that are economic, environmental, social and cultural. And it requires suitable consideration of all above four parts of pillars for well being of all stakeholders, to achieve long-term goals requires the engagement of all the stakeholders concerned to the production and consumption process of sustainable tourism though it is related to ruralisation or urbanization (Cooper et al., 2008).

Economic Sustainability:

Cooper et al., 2008 explained that ‘economic sustainability requires holistic planning across all industrial sectors. It must also reach beyond the destination to make sure that intermediaries such as tour operators are not able to circumvent or put unwanted pressure on the planning processes’, it may create a negative impression on the tourist and tourist destination. Mowforth and Munt (2009) have mentioned that ‘economic sustainability is not less important than all others in any tourist development. Sustainability in these terms refers to a level of economic gain from the activity such as planning, training etc., sufficient either to cover the cost of any other special measures taken to provide for the tourist and to mitigate the effects of the tourist’s presence or to offer an income appropriate other conditions or both’. In contrast, Baumgartner and Quaas (2010) have different view as ‘the general definition of sustainability has based on the notions of weak and strong sustainability’.

Environmental Sustainability

Environmental sustainability in tourism requires greater attention and knowledge about the impacts and ways of translating those impacts into the economic marketplace. The tourist, or service provider in the tourism industry have to understand their responsibilities such as disturbing the natural life cycles so for this reason government legislation should be there in system that in case of failure to abide by those systems (Cooper et al., 2008). Further there is need to calculate carrying capacities, it is an important method of assessing environmental impact and sustainability (Maldonado et al. 1992 cited in Mowforth and Munt 2009).

Social sustainability

Social sustainability is a ability of a community, may local or national, to understand changes such as excess tourists, for short or long term and continuing functioning either without the creation of social disharmony as a result of these contribution or by settling its functions and relationships so that the conflict created can be improve or mitigated (Mowforth and Munt 2009). As per the Cooper et al., (2008) that ‘tourists who do not want to adapt at all will always create negative impacts on the local community. So to avoid it tourist who may be through natural interest where the concerned visitor intrigued by local customs and behaviour so they go to scrutinize and that inspection can set in movement of a commercialisation process that will sooner or later change the events’.

Cultural sustainability

Travel can change person’s life through its visits to various parts of the world and more interaction between the local people of the destinations. It helps to develop the understanding about the tourist destination and its culture of the local people. But some time the relationships within particular society, the mores of interaction, the lifestyle, the customs and traditions are all subjectively means of exchange. Even its culture may be irreversibly altered. Culture is a dynamic a feature of human life as in the society, community and economy; so then it can be assume that changes in culture not always welcome in to the society. That means sometime it creates negative effects. But, the cultural sustainability refers to the ability of people to maintain or understand the elements of their culture which distinguished them from others people (Mowforth and Munt, 2009).

According the definition that destination has made by manmade borders, so here every destination has its own administrative as well as managing style. This includes the rules and regulation of the town, city, states, countries and all worlds to sustain the balance of Environmental, economic, social and cultural sustainability. So, the role of government and private organization to make strategies and policies is to keep engaging and motivating the participants on long term basis such as government stakeholders, private organizations, and other local authorities also the NGO’s in to development of the tourism product. Due to the vast nature of the industry it involves wide-ranging of operations, decisions and planning area with understanding sustainability and non sustainability and the requirements of tourist destinations, its consumer and suppliers such as tourism intermediaries and others like infrastructure developers and legal procedures such as visa and tourists destination management, its statistics of visitors and economy which circulate by the tourism industry (Prugh et al., 2000).

The destination which I have taken that is Maharashtra state of India. So first of all according to definition of destination need to understand geography of Maharashtra.

Maharashtra is a state which located in the western part of India. It is the second most populous and third largest state by area in India. There is a huge tourism potential available in Maharashtra due to its culture and vide range of geographical area.

The borders of Maharashtra is the Arabian Sea to the west of India with a 720 km long coastline along the lush green Konkan region, nestled Sahyadri mountain range are several hill stations and water reservoirs with semi-evergreen and deciduous forests. Gujarat and the Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli to the northwest, Madhya Pradesh to the northeast, Chhattisgarh to the east, Karnataka to the south, Andhra Pradesh to the southeast,  

Goa  which is the part of Maharashtra it has located at the southwest it is a famous holiday spot in the world it is well known by its various beaches. Vasco da Gama sailed down at Malabar Coast in 1948. The Goa’s economy is solely depending on the tourism.

Maharashtra state covers an area of 307,731 km2 (118,816 sq mi) or 9.84% of the total geographical area of India. Mumbai, the capital city of the state, is India’s largest city and the financial capital of the nation. Marathi is the mother tongue of Maharashtra (Govt. of Maharashtra, 2006).

It is also the richest state in India, contributing to 15% of the country’s industrial output and 13.2% of its GDP in year 2005-06.

History

The name Maharashtra also appeared in a 7th century inscription and in the account of a Chinese traveller Hiuen-Tsang, was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator that brought up the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period.

The potential available at Maharashtra that it has four world cultural heritage sites as first two located in the Sahyadri Mountain Range these are 1) Ajanta caves 2) Ellora caves at Aurangabad and 3) Elephanta caves at the Elephanta Island at the Mumbai. And the newly inscribed site is ‘Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus’ (CST) before it was known as ‘Victoria Terminus’ (VT) (MTDC, 2010).

Bhandardara is noted place for trekking place of Maharashtra followed by Pratapgarh near Mahabaleshwar, Torna near Bhor and Panhala near Kolhapur. Also Sahyadri ranges provide about 7 to 8 trekking cites which has around Pune, Satara, Lonavala and other places. And the rock climbing at Karla Mountains, believed to be dating back to 160 BC. It is home to the huge cluster of Chaitya caves (Planning commission of India, 2007).

The water sport activity available at Panshet Aqua Sports centres 40 km drive from Pune, such as windsurfing, speed boating, kayaking, water scooters etc. Close to Mumbai, Esselworld at Gorai is an amusement park which has roller coasters and water slides. Also the Sailing which is most popular in India available at Mumbai and Pune, in Maharashtra, sailing equipments are available only at the Khadakvasla Lake in Pune. Currently, MTDC has started the Scuba and Snorkelling diving school in the water of Arabian Sea at Konkan (MTDC, 2010).

Before propose, justify and to defend strategy for the chosen destination, require a SWOT analysis of destination internally as well externally (Tribe, 2003). Then it is easy to understand the nature of competitiveness and threats among the four pillar of sustainability. The analysis involves consideration of the major influences upon the tourist destination success in terms of: resources and environment (Tribe, 2003). So according to this, the analysis of Maharashtra’s tourism sector is also based on national and global factor as resources and environmental consideration.

SWOT analysis of Maharashtra (Govt of India, 2007):

Strength available in Maharashtra

Maharashtra has immense potential with natural beaches, heritage and culture. Mumbai is comparatively higher in strength of Maharashtra States. It is commercial as well as entertainment capital of India. Recently, the achievement by A. R. Rehman from Slumdog millionaire movie, It has received a prime interest to population of Indian origin in the source of market of USA and UK.

Mumbai has an international airport brings about 26 per cent of most of the international tourists. Also, it has advantage of getting most of the tourist to the state before any other states in India.

Further, in Agricultural tourism wine tourism now in boom. Because of The international level research institute and providing a better knowledge about the agricultural products which includes export quality product to other countries and how to sustain the farmers land to grow well crops in future. While considering health Medical tourism also in budding stage in metro cities.

Weakness in Tourism of Maharashtra

Every tourism require tourist for its growth so, the tourism industry in Maharashtra is highly depend on the long haul market include USA, UK, France and Germany.

Secondly, the host ambience; when tourist arrived in Mumbai they experience that the condition of western highway is poor, ample amount of advertisement boards and then on the road beggars this all creates a very poor host ambience the reason behind it is population of Mumbai about is approximately 13,788,305.

Thirdly, destination transits status shows that only 5-8 per cent out of 50 per cent of international tourist who visits to India is ready to travel to Maharashtra’s destination. The reason behind it the Safety and security concerns and poor marketing campaign available around India and other countries.

Fourthly, unfocused development and lack of co-ordination between MTDC (Maharashtra Tourism Development and Corporation), ITDC (Indian Tourism Development Corporation) and IRCTC (Indian Railway and Catering Tourism Corporation) etc. have followed their own objectives and plans and are working on separate platform. Lack of co-operation between various governmental organization involved in tourism creates inconvenience to the tourist. For example : A visit to Ajanta World heritage site requires a tourist to purchase as many as 7 tickets due to a distinct jurisdiction issue.(Planning Commission of India, 2007). And Deccan Odyssey Luxury train which serves 7 tourist destinations in Maharashtra has getting less revenue, because of poor marketing strategies and promotions from various tourist information Kiosk available in Maharashtra and other part of India.

Opportunities to sustain tourism in Maharashtra

Due to 9/11 terrorist attack, the domestic tourism growth has increased. Maharashtra Government undertaking initiatives to attract domestic tourism as a tourism strategy. Secondly, Indian government’s Golden Quadrilateral Highway project is now in last stage to connect North- South, East-west corridors by the National highways, and is expected to increase accessibilities in domestic tourism (GoI, 2002). The growing tourism source countries of Japan, China and Sri Lanka have Buddhist populations (Buddha Dharma Education Association) their interest is in Buddhist architecture and heritage is a great opportunity for Maharashtra to offer then its unique ‘Cave Architecture’. Thirdly, the nature of tourist market in Mumbai, the high spending business and leisure tourists mostly from East European countries affects on the market. The available outbound market is China.

Threats which affects to sustain competitive tourism in Maharashtra

Maharashtra had significant threats in last decade that all affect on the tourism of Maharashtra. The series of incidents as bomb blast in 1993 target was Hotels and tourists attraction, train bomb blast 2006 and then at the end terrorist attack on 26th to 29th November 2008 on Hotel Trident, The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminals in Mumbai. Secondly, the competitor of it started Economic Impact assessment working with the help of WTO and WTTC, Kerala has already started their vision 2025 to sustain their development growth in tourism. Thirdly, the most competition can be seen in Heritage tourism, beach tourism, back water sport and special interest tourism.

Cultural sustainability and strategies in Maharashtra:

Under the cultural tourism strategy of Maharashtra the government considered that it has distinctive aspects of its rich culture and tradition would be identified and promoted as an integral part of Maharashtra’s tourism. To Identify and promote the state’s folk arts and organize folk dance and music programmes at tourist destinations (Govt of Maharashtra 2006). But to sustain it there is less financial support to those participants in to the entertainment field. The financial support is not on time they need to wait sanction the amount from government. Currently, there is a lot of attention to Bollywood artist, so here it can be seen that celebrities has taken over on Maharashtra’s culture such as following dress sense of Hollywood actresses is now seen in metro cities. There is still no any specific step has been taken by any of the entertainment industry to give chance to local folk artist to perform on large scale.

Environmental impacts and strategies of sustainable tourism in Maharashtra:

Due to dramatically rise in the Domestic as well as international tourism, currently metropolitan cities such as Mumbai and Pune, has facing pollution level problem, considering the case of Pune, in Pune the pollution level always on critical level. Local authority made strict rule for transportation and traffic rule to control the negative impact on the environment but still it not up to the good level to achieve low pollution in those metro cities.

Every tourism activity affects the natural and built environment. The issue between tourism and environment has lot of complication, but to sustain it there are some strategies such as government has made plane to develop eco- tourism for this according to the requirement such as there is no any new construction will take place in preserved area for sanctuaries and other important places such as lakes and forest land. Changes can be made in old building such as government rest houses at hill station and sanctuaries. But, in fact those cost and expenditure on old construction is comparatively higher than new construction. On another side to develop or to sustain such sites, government and NGO’s providing financial and knowledge about the eco- tourism to local people who surviving on the nature.

For environmental sustainability government has chosen some part of Konkan in Mumbai, in this, the residence at those places are paid by government to develop their houses (Huts and Cottages) with amenities and other facilities but to ensure that life cycle of nature it should not be disturb. This is a really good example as well as strategy to understand the rural life at those places in touch with nature for next generation as well as the tourists from urban part also helps to increase income level and living standard (GoM, 2006).

Economic sustainable strategies

The economic Sustainability means the balance of rural and urban economics development. The government and private policy maker should consider reduction of rural as well as urban poverty in specific destination Shen et al., (2008). According to this as per mention earlier that currently the government and various private organization institutions working on the research area of Agriculture, nature (wildlife), medical (Health and safety), information technology-communication and at the end human resource development in the Maharashtra, to provide better employment opportunity to each people and to generate and increase the income level of each people and their standard of living.

Now the current competitiveness shows that unbalance growth in various sector, such as labour on contract and seasonal basis. In short when the pinnacle period of any season starts then the employers often outsource the employment instead of local. The effect of this rises in dispute between local and outsourcing employee.

The India is still developing country; Japan has been supporting in reconstruction of Ajanta caves in Maharashtra and Nalanda University is an ancient centre of higher learning in Bihar, it was a Buddhist centre of learning from 427 to 1197 CE.

The economics of Maharashtra has highly depend on long haul and outbound tourist whose spending capacity is more than domestic tourist, as per discuss earlier that the stake holders play an important role in development in sustainable economic growth through employment and taxation, such stake holders in Maharashtra as Taj, Oberoy, Hilton, Best Western Hotels, Hyatt and in tourism Thomas Cook, Cox and King, SOTC and Raj Travel and other well known tourism service providers.

Social sustainable strategies:

Stren and Polese’s (2000) define social sustainability as development (and or growth) that is compatible with the harmonious evolution of civil society, fostering an environment conducive to the compatible cohabitation of culturally and socially diverse groups while at the same time encouraging social integration, with improvements in the quality of life for all segments of the population (Davidson, M., 2009).

Sex tourism a new phenomenon issue, according to Nair, P., and Sen, S., (2005) that ‘not all the tourists are sex tourists, some of them definitely are’. The sex incident happened in Goa had significant effect on Goa’s tourism, in which there is use of young girls for sex and pornography, by giving them shelter. According to Cooper et al., (2008) ‘the growth of such activities is often supported by a network of facilitators ranging from pimps and brothels through to the apparently more respectable taxi drivers and hotel workers. The internet has only added to the problem by creating an international communication network that can market these services on international scale’. Also, there are lonely child labour in small scale industries and without family, and mostly international tourists who come to enjoy their vacation, consider that child is safe as they feel that the children don’t have any Sexual Transfer Diseases (Nair, P., and Sen, S., 2005).

According to this the people of Maharashtra, stays in various societies there is always up and down glimpses of society can be seen in the social contest. So therefore, social upliftment and improved quality of life through exchanging culture adopting changes in environments and social life. In the situation like natural calamities, the requirement of unity to overcome from natural and manmade unpleasant incidents can be seen in the people of Maharashtra. Though, there may any disputes between different origins of people’s culture.

Whereas, Kulkarni G., (2010) say that ‘people may argue that issue of environment is enough, the enormity of the problem demands that, if each one of people of Maharashtra without blaming to the government authority does their bit toward conserving and sustaining the environment. Then it will ready to lend a hand to next generation to sustain environment with low economic price’

Conclusion:

As a consultant, that every destination and attraction’s consumer and providers should understand that sustainable and non sustainable culture. Then, only the specific growth in next 10-15 year long term period can be achieved without extra energy. Also, balance must be maintain between limits and usage so that continuous changing, monitoring and planning ensure that tourism can be managed properly in Maharashtra (GoM, 2006). There is various strategies can be followed to develop competitiveness in tourism, keep in mind the importance of sustainability such as:

Education and training:

Once, people get basic education or knowledge about the environment and the sustainability in their life, and then the improvement within them can lead to help to their respective destination. For example: local tourist guide training programme, which will help to understand the history as well as importance of the place by local people and how they can serve to the tourist on competitive level. For, this government institution at Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and Nashik has been playing an important role to give education and training to the seekers. In private organization Taj and Oberoy institution has most influence on tourism industry management in Maharashtra.

Equal opportunity:

There should be put some lime light on rest part of Maharashtra, because current policies highly concentrated on Mumbai only, it provide lots of job and opportunities to the people of respective destination and attraction, so the govt and private organization should not ignore the immense potential available at other places of Maharashtra. They could concentrate on Agricultural tourism, medical tourism, heritage tourism, adventure tourism and wild life tourism etc.

The role of researchers and professional in decision making process:

It can play an important role policy and strategy analysis, in simple words to identify positive and negative points through various researches which conducted by professionals and scholars. Because, the management and the govern body is solely responsible for any changes in process of development in tourism some time it can lead damages.

Safety and security:

Tourist should not be a victim of any manmade and natural calamity; extra care should be taken by the local government and tour operator because of any vulnerability in case of woman or loss human of national and international countries can affects on the specific destination and the future tourists and their decisions.

Decentralization and accountability:

The process of operation and management involves variety of task and governing body, to reduce timescale the requirement of quick and perfect decision to make changes or implementation of original strategies. As well as keeping records of each event and financial transaction leads to clear accountability in the tourism sector. And can help to make better forecasting for tourism in Maharashtra.