Critical Explorations
Asynchronous Session
Featured Accessibility Dynamics in Trekking Tourism: Road Constructions Shortening the Destination Lifecycle View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Amar Shrestha, Sitaram Dahal
Nepal, being a mountainous country is a popular destination among adventure tourists, especially trekkers. The country where approximately 17% land is above 3000 metres above sea level, is home to many mountains including 8 mountains above 8000 metres. Further, the mid hills cover the largest section of the country which itself is a perfect destination for trekking tourism. Rozycki and Dryglas (2014) opine that trekking is done in unexplored region where flow of visitors is usually low. This might be the reason trekking tourism became source of livelihood in rural areas of Annapurna, Everest and Langtang. Different places of Annapurna conservation area have been popular trekking sites. It seems obvious that trekking tourists do not prefer the places which can be accessed by vehicles. However, after decentralization and local level election, there has been whim in construction of roads in different places irrespective of its feasibility study and impact projections. Many popular trekking destinations have been victims of such practices. Recently, roads were constructed in Ghorepani and Ghandruk which are famous short trekking destinations/ stop over of Annapurna region. It is found that roads increase ease in accessibility which adds value to a destination, however, on a long run it might affect tea houses/ lodges and other communities of trekking destinations as people tend to visit for a very short while. The case study attempts to diagnose the impacts roads have brought in the trekking tourism.
Painting Landscapes and Creating Cultural Ensembles: Women Entrepreneurs and Tourism in a Magical Town - Tlaxco, Tlaxcala View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Martha Cuéllar
Today, the territories and regions where tourism is promoted reveal realities, forms, and interactions among themselves, in constant contact with the outside world. Some practices are culturally instituted, but also activities such as ventures that are guided by local economies, however, they have a multi-situated integration with commercial exchanges, subjection to state policies and adoptions of lifestyles with adaptability to change and modernity of the 21st century, but also with genuine effects. This work is an in-situ approach to the territory, which as a cultural system is impacted by the economic, political, and social worlds, the transitory of "places and non- places", the macro-processes of the markets in capitalist relations. Two stories of life are presented, of entrepreneurs surrounded in activities of creations and authorship: Maya Balcazar who paints pictures of the natural territory with landscapes and elements of the terroir and Mrs. Teresa Hernandez who with her artistic cultural center forms and directs "assemblies" from the identity symbols, characters, and historical events. All this in the Magical Town of Tlaxco, Tlaxcala, with haciendas, sawmills, micro-enterprises, and cheese stores by tradition, where now burst, handicrafts in worked wood and jewelry in lost wax, novel enterprises in the solidarity economies of knowledge.
