Managing the environment in religious tourism destinations: a conceptual model.

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to do a comparative analysis of the environmental issues in six religious tourism destinations and then use this analysis as a basis to propose a conceptual model for explaining environmental management in religious tourism destinations. All the destinations selected for this analysis are from the state of Maharashtra in western India. This was done so that at least one governing parameter - legislative and institutional frameworks - was common to all sites. This commonality allowed for exploring the influence of other factors, such as the size of the town, the nature of the pilgrimage economy, the scale of pilgrim- or catchment-field, landscape attributes, and land uses, among others, in articulating and responding to environmental problems. Using indicators commonly used in environmental assessments, a comparative discussion of the environmental scenarios in these places is presented. The different institutions and their responses to the environmental challenges are explained, before the presenting the proposed conceptual model.