Leisure, Tourism-Development and Environment Interface: Uttarakhand Tourism in India- Reflections

Uttarakhand with an area of 53484 Sq. Km., is the ninth Himalayan state of India. Located on the fringe of two international boundaries, the state of Uttarakhand is known for its innumerable tourism destinations including various hill stations, wild life centuries, national parks, adventurous sports and pilgrimage tourism centers. The mission of the state government is to develop Uttarakhand as a tourist hub and the ‘tourism’ as the core- sector for employment generation.    

In this very context the main objective of this paper is to analyze, ‘leisure, tourism- development and the environment interface’ and its pervasive environmental, economic and social impacts on the stakeholders, the tourists and the people dwelling in the place of tourist destinations.

The study goes with this hypothetical proposition that, ‘the sustainable tourism strategy can only serve the mission of tourism development along with its triple principles (the environmental, economic and the social) and also satiate the need and purpose of tourist.

The study concludes that; the leisure, tourism-development and environment are interrelated phenomena. It is the leisure that paves the way for tourism, and correspondently the tourism accentuates development and also accelerates the pace of infrastructural development to cater the need and objectives of the tourists as well as of the man power engaged with tourism practices. The consequential impacts of the whole of the tourism practices are viewed on; (i) the over all environment of the place of tourist destinations (ii) the economy of the stakeholder and of the human resource (iii) the society and culture of the places of tourist destination, and (iv) the tourists. The ground realities exhibit that, despite incomparable prospects in tourism sector the target of sustainable tourism development is unachieved rather hampered in the state of Uttarakhand due to nonobservance of the universally ‘accepted principles of sustainable tourism’.