The intention is to benefit the local community economically and socially as well as enable interaction between tourists and the local population for a mutually enriching experience. Under this scheme, the thrust is to promote village tourism as the primary tourism product to spread tourism and its socio-economic benefits to rural and new geographic regions, thereby stopping the exodus from rural to urban areas. The Village Level Council (VLC) is the interactive forum for local community participation in work plan implementation, further supported by other community level institutions.
Published in Chapter:
Socio-Economic Impact of Rural Tourism: A Study on Padmanavpur Village of Odisha
Sarat Kumar Lenka (Indian Institute of Tourism Management, India)
Copyright: © 2014
|Pages: 9
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-5154-8.ch008
Abstract
In recent years, rural villages of India have found a place on the tourist map of the world. Not only does rural tourism provide an additional source of income to the villagers but it also helps showcase the rural life and culture of the people, such as art, crafts, and heritage, etc., of the village and community. At present, most of the states of India are facing many challenges for the implementation of rural tourism projects, which stands against achieving the objective of the project set-up by the Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of India. Some of the problems are very grave and need immediate attention of the administration. The Department of Tourism, Govt. of Odisha, has identified eight villages in the state for implementation of the Rural Tourism project. Padmanavapur, a village in South Odisha is one of them. The author has taken this village to study the impact of rural tourism on the socio-cultural life of the local community. The chapter indicates that the village has a high potential for tourists, but due to the delay in implementation and completion of the project, the stakeholders are not getting the desired benefits.