Hosts legitimizing community-based tourism as a solution to ghost villages of Uttarakhand, India

ABSTRACT The state of Uttarakhand, India is plagued by the unique situation of “ghost villages”, where not a single resident remains in the village. Number of reasons and solutions have been ascribed to this situation. Community-based tourism (CBT) has been promoted as an option to prevent outbound migration. Thus, preventing the emergence of new ghost villages. The success of community-based tourism is predicated on its acceptance by the host village community. The present qualitative research identifies the acceptance and inhibiting factors of the host community towards the CBT. While the host community has granted cognitive & pragmatic legitimacy to the CBT phenomena and accepted the evolving social norms, the moral legitimacy for CBT is still lacking from the community elders.