Dateline: Uttarakhand has crawled it’s onto the world map for tourism. It is known not only for spiritual tourism (Chardham, Yoga festival) but also tourists making their way to hill-state to enjoy its cooler climes and scenic beauty.
Brainstorming on various aspects of ‘Responsible Tourism in Uttarakhand’ in its third edition of VoW Policy Dialogue organized at VoW Cafe in Dehradun, speakers from different spheres involved in a policy dialogue that emphasized on the need of the hour to inculcate responsible tourism. Issues such as carrying capacity, sustainable development education, culture, environment, waste management and migration were also discussed.
Dr. Sanjeev Chopra, Festival Director of the Valley of the Words said, “when we talk about tourism, we have to talk about our culture as well. Tourism is a great medium for the promotion of culture. Through this we can take our traditions, our food and our products to other communities.” Citing the example of Bhutan and other countries, he advocated different models of responsible tourism.
Kiran Bhatt Todaria, Managing Director, Indo Ganga Holidays and a pioneer of adventure tourism spoke from experience about the development of the rafting activities in her hometown, Rishikesh. Kiran highlighted how, “our state may have benefited economically through tourism, but for this we have put our environment and our culture at stake. She spoke about, “making all the operators of the region sensitive towards the environment and culture. To begin rafting activities in other rivers of the state as well.“
Dr. Jagdeep Khanna, Principal, Institute of Hotel Management, Dehradun said, there is a need to bring more clarity in the home stay policy in the state. Along with the promotion of culture and food through tourism.” He stressed on the need to utilize the full potential of places like the Tehri Lake. He signed off saying, “ if we want to move towards responsible tourism, then we have to focus on carrying capacity, study and pre-planning.”
Hemant Kochar, Chair Uttarakhand Chapter – PHD Chamber of Commerce spoke about the 12 different models of tourism and the need for further research. He said, “we have to do research on what kind of tourists are coming to Uttarakhand, what they are giving us and what are they taking from here.” He talked about, “diversifying tourism and developing new tourist places. Providing training to the people associated with the business about sustainable tourism and SDG Goals.”
While conducting the program, Anoop Nautiyal of SDC Foundation gave information on different aspects of sustainable tourism in the report on Indian Himalayan Region released by NITI Aayog in the year 2018. Along with this, he referred to the Sustainable Tourism Criteria of the Union Ministry of Tourism, Eco Tourism Policy of October 2021 of the Ministry of Environment and Uttarakhand Tourism Draft Policy 2020. Through statistics, he gave information about, “the responsible model of tourism on the basis of the number of pilgrims who came to the Chardham Yatra as well as the Purnagiri fair, Kainchidham fair and Ganga Dussehra fair that were completed this month.”
HUDCO Regional Manager Sanjay Bhargava, Rashmi Chopra, Paramjit Singh Kakkar of Pramukh Sanstha, Vishal Kala of PHD Chamber of Commerce, Robin Nagar of Valley Culture, Vaid Shikha Prakash among others were present on the occasion.
