Unexpected influence of tourism in the vulnerable economic region: The impact of tourism on native
community and primary economic sector
Tony K. Thomas
Vulnerability in rural economy
The vulnerability mostly affected to a community is when primary economic sector fails, and the whole community struggles to recover and depends on possible secondary economic sector
Primary and secondary economy in rural tourism
Primary: AgricultureSecondary: Tourism
Decline of primary economy
Economic smallness
Production cost
Price fall
Crop diseases
Natural calamitie
s
Primary Vs secondary economy50
40
30
20
10
0
-1
Primary Secondary
50
40
30
20
10
0
-1
TourismAgriculture
No significant changes in economy
Community economic benefits is doubled
Rural tourism
Community in the rural tourist destination perceives tourism as the main source of income when other occupations become undependable(Wang (1997)
Tourism is one of the best choices preferred by many destination communities for economic recovery
Rural community
Community structure can range across a number of polar extremes
The balance of both primary and secondary sector depends on the range of benefits the sector offers to the community
Objective
To analyze the primary and secondary occupational shift of rural community to recover economic downturn in a vulnerable economic system
Study area: A small district in God’s own country
Kerala economy
13.28 and 20.2 percentages of people in the rural and urban areas respectively are living below poverty line in Kerala
service sectors including tourism contributes 63.8 percentage state wide GDP and 17.2 percentage state wide GDP is supported by agriculture sector
Wayanad
The highest variation in the state (37.5% increase)
Tourism profile
Rapid decline of agriculture economy in 2000
2005: 942- 1,91,1842006: 2611- 2,25,922007: 4011-2,56,1902008: 5638-2,95,465
2010: 7034- 370, 765 Tourism started developing in 2000 Tourism became one of the main economic sector
of wayanad
Wayanad tourism
In two years
The region is a part of the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves
60 Homestay and serviced villas Vertical growth of tourist arrival
In a nutshell
A typical blend of extreme “culture, Heritage, nature and recreation place”
Heritage & Culture
Nature
Recreation
Strategic geographic location
Issues in primary economic sector
The rise in prices of essential commodities and decline in production of cash crops have dealt a severe blow on the economy of Wayanad
Farmers in the district are the worst hit 324 out of the total 841 farmer suicides in
Kerala occurred in Wayanad
All happened in the past 10 years
The reciprocal relationship
Economic downturn of agriculture
0
1000000000
2000000000
3000000000
4000000000
5000000000
6000000000
7000000000
2000-2001 2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004
Economic downturn of agriculture
Economic growth of tourism
0
1000000
2000000
3000000
4000000
5000000
6000000
2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004 2004-2005 2006-2007 2007-2008
Economic growth of tourism
The reciprocal relationship
Tourism
Primary economy
50
40
30
20
10
0
-1
50
40
30
20
10
0
-1
Agriculture Tourism
No significant economic changes
The local community perceive
Tourism as a business due to the economic downturn of primary economy
There is no basic training and idea on what is to be done in tourism, but involved to meet day –today – expenses
Income from tourism is extremely basic as external investors grab it
Weak diffusion of indirect and induced benefits
Local community perceive
Dependency on tourism is need based, no passion involved in it
Therefore the community involvement shows “twisted” and back to agrarian economy if the agriculture income become more stable
(Neither the primary sector nor the secondary sector is stable in this type of development)
Conclusion
Lacking capacity development is one of the major issues in managing rural destinations as a responsible and sustainable tourist destination
Thanks