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