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Equitable Tourism Options - EQUATIONS Statement on World Tourism Day, 27th September 2021

“This is an opportunity to look beyond tourism statistics and acknowledge that, behind every number, there is a person. UNWTO invites its Member States, as well as non-members, sister UN agencies, businesses and individuals to celebrate tourism’s unique ability to ensure that nobody is left behind as the world begins to open up again and look to the future.”

Heritage, Communities and Tourism

Need for participative processes in Tourism

June 30, 2021

Heritage tourism has emerged as a major contributor to the tourism industry in the past few years employing millions of people directly and indirectly. Right now, tourism accounts for about 15% of the economy of Rajasthan and contributes about 11.2 per cent and 3.3 per cent share in India's foreign and domestic tourist arrivals respectively. Heritage sites are an attraction for not just domestic tourists but also gain attention from the international tourists especially with the attribution of labels such as UNESCO world heritage.

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Coasts, Islands, and Rivers

The Silent Conquest — Coastal Governance in the Blue Economy

June 12, 2021

Mandarmani is a small village on the coast of West Bengal. The story told is that it got its name from the Mandar, bright red flowers of the coral tree (gen.: erythrina) — the beach, the locals say, was so heavily populated with red crabs that from a distance it looked like a large garden of Mandar. But with the rapid growth of tourism from 2010, the garden of crabs has been replaced by a garden of tourists. The tall and lofty dunes of Mandarmani were flattened to make space for more than seventy-five hotels and resorts in the area.[1] The beach that was once used extensively by fishworker families for fishing, sorting out the day’s catch, docking boats, and drying fish, now has only one small hut and a few boats left for the fishworkers.

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Children

Restarting Tourism with focus on Child Protection

As India responds to the pandemic, push factors that facilitate or lead to violence in general, including the sexual exploitation of children both online and offline are intensifying, or are expected to increase. The urgent need is to ensure that child protection forms an integral part of the sustainable, responsible, ethical and resilient tourism discourses. This can only be achieved if the key stakeholders and primarily tourism industry, tourism associations, tourists themselves come together to enable themselves with knowledge and expertise to prevent, mitigate, and remediate risks to child protection.

Forests

Tourism Carrying Capacity and the Western Ghats

One of the important prerequisites to tourism planning is a sound understanding of the thresholds of the area being used for tourism. The concept of Tourism Carrying Capacity allows for planning tourism in a sustainable manner.

Hills and Mountains

Stopping the livelihood-destroying Himalayan Ski Village project

In 2005, a devastating project threatened the livelihoods of local communities in the Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh.We helped the residents and local NGOs run a strong campaign and provided them with the necessary research help and support. They were able to stall the project.

Coasts, Islands, and Rivers

The Growth of Tourism and the Blue Economy in India

All along the coast, fishing villages are populated by people dependant directly and indirectly on fishing & other coastal livelihoods and India is gearing up to develop coastal and cruise tourism. The rush to develop the ‘blue economy’ risks harming both the marine environment and local economies and livelihoods.

Policies

Tourism in and around Tiger Reserves

EQUATIONS campaigned extensively to push the MoEF (Ministry of Environment and Forests) and other policy makers to be more conscientious in their regulation of tourism in forest areas. EQUATIONS was nominated to the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s committee to help formulate guidelines for the zoning of core areas, buffer zones and tourism in tiger reserves. We collaborated with several movements and organisations to demand that the committee's recommendations were pro-people.

EQUATIONS is a research, campaign, and advocacy organisation working on tourism and development issues in India. We collaborate closely with other organisations and peoples movements to encourage people-centered forms of tourism & policies that ensure significant local benefits and take into account the negative impacts of an unbridled growth of tourism.

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