Sixth International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

This thesis explores sustainable tourism as a catalyst to safeguard intangible cultural heritage by studying the case of Jambughoda Wildlife Sanctuary, India. This study also scrutinizes the role tourism initiatives play towards achieving the SDGs at the site. However, one cannot study the impact of sustainable development without measuring it which is meaningless without the indicators. To employ an indicator-based approach, indicators need to be developed from the grassroot level with a bottom up approach as each destination has different features. The author has mapped the interrelationship between tourism and cultural-natural heritage. The indicators for this study were devised to measure whether sustainable tourism is serving as a catalyst to safeguard and revive cultural heritage knowledge system and practices with economic, environmental, and socio-cultural sustainability, and thus, promoting solidarity economy. To measure the sustainability, a matrix-based indicator system is developed based on participant observation and semi structured interviews. This thesis also explored how the indigenous communities must apply the concept of ploughing back of profits to retain the earnings from tourism towards safeguarding and promotion of their cultural heritage. This study is an example of Pareto efficiency as well. The conclusion indicates that institutional leadership is required to steer and delve the communities towards sustainability. The author has identified the tour operators as a key stakeholder and the link between the tourists and local community, which makes them the drivers for sustainability and a funnel to implement the policy measures required for sustainability.