Understanding tribal community’s perception toward tourism impacts: the case of emerging destinations in western Himalaya, Kinnaur

ABSTRACT Recently, many untoward incidents have happened in middle Himalaya either due to natural calamities or human errors, and large casualties, which were avoidable, occurred due to unregulated tourism. Considering that, this study has tried to identify the impact of unregulated tourism so that appropriate intervention policies can be made to develop eco-friendly tourism activities in the study area. The three most important tourist destinations in the region, Chitkul, Kalpa, and Nako, have been selected to evaluate the impacts of tourism development in cold desert destinations. A field survey of about five percent of the total population of the three selected destinations was performed by a simple random sampling technique in 2016 to investigate the tourism impacts. Data have been processed using factor analysis, ANOVA and Doxey’s Irridex model. The investigation reveals that there is no negative change in residents' sensitivity toward tourism development. The study area has vast scope to generate livelihood avenues to the locals in the untapped tourism sector and to arrest migration triggered due to high unemployment and limited options constrained by harsh geographical conditions. Furthermore, there is a need to reframe policy for hilly areas in cold deserts which have a lot of potential in tourism development.