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TopIntroduction
Brian D. Kharpan Daly in Caves for the Uninitiated (2013), stated that
While the rest of the world was marching ahead on the speleological front, India was lagging, probably because of a lack of karsts of any significance, though limestone is extensive throughout the India Himalaya (Daly, 2013). The tiny state of Meghalaya (erstwhile in Assam), however, was known to have some potential as per reports in the Bengal Gazetteer by the British administrators and officers in the early twentieth century. Some of these caves were visited and explored by inquisitive scientists like Shiba Prasad Chatterjee between 1928 and 1932, Knut Lindberg in 1947, or resident British Army officers like Allsup in 1934, Roberts in 1949, and other casual visitors like R. N. De in 1932 and H. D. Gebauer in 1980. (p. xi)
Thorough exploration and research on the Siju Cave or Bat Cave (4,772 m), Garo Hills district, has been done since 1924 (Kemp & Chopra, 1924), making it the first lime-lighted natural cave from India instances. In the late 1940s, after the post-British Rule period, widespread curiosity about spelunking emerged as an adventure sport in the state. There have been more than 28 years of exploration visits to various parts of Meghalaya (Indian Caving, 2020). This expedition has been a partnership since 1992 between members of the Meghalaya Adventurers Association (MAA), Brian D. Kharpran Daly, and Donbok Syiemlieh with cave explorers from Austria, Ireland, Netherlands, Serbia, Switzerland, Middle East, America, specialists from other countries, the Navy and Army of Indian supported by the Meghalaya State Tourism Department. As a result of this expedition, the whereabouts of over 1,700 caves (up to March 2020) and cave sites have been tabulated. Only around 100 caves have been explored or partially explored, and much more is to be discovered. Up to 518 km of cave passages have been surveyed. Explored caves have deep shafts and river passages. Some of them even present ancient relic passages. These distinctive features have put Meghalaya firmly as an outstanding region of caves and karst on the world-caving map. This paper presents the cave tourism resources available in the state of Meghalaya, the potential to be developed, and a path for developing tourism.
TopLiterature Review And Hypothesis
A cave is a natural opening beneath the Earth’s surface, a natural roofed cavity in a rock that may be penetrated for an appreciable distance by a human (Curl, 1964). These spaces can be very large, such as the Sarawak Chamber, also known as “Good Luck Cave” in Sarawak, Malaysia, which is large enough to accommodate a large aircraft. The size of the caves varies and can be very small as well (Culver & Pipan, 2019). The word cave is derived from the Latin word cavus, which means hollow. A cave is a more or less horizontal hollow in the ground or the side of a hill or mountain, which, when entering, looks like a natural chamber or a series of chambers.
The United Nations World Tourism Organization defines tourism as the activity of a person traveling to a place other than one’s normal setting for a time period lesser than a year. The purpose of the travel may be leisure, business, or others apart from being employed by a resident entity of the place visited (Theobald, 2005). Geotourism includes tourism activities taken by tourists who are fascinated to see the geomorphic transformations of the Earth’s surface. These changes take place either due to deformation or a building up of the surface (Dowling et al., 2021). Cave tourism or speleotourism is a segment of geotourism, a form of tourism associated with exploring and discovering cave spaces and abysses; it usually includes climbing activities such as abseiling, climbing ascents, cave diving, and boat trips on underground rivers with guides (Pásková & Zelenka, 2002). Čech et al. (2021) understood speleotourism as
an individual or group tourism organized in the commercial interest in caves accessible to the public or other attractive karst objects equipped with security features. . . . They are technically secured, and a trained guide carries out the tour. (p. 3)