Natural Endowment and Tourism in the Hills: A Case Study of Darjeeling, Darjeeling

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue IV, April 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

Natural Endowment and Tourism in the Hills: A Case Study of Darjeeling, Darjeeling

Binita Rai
Research Scholar, University of North Bengal

Abstract:- Tourism is one of the world’s most important activities, involving millions of people, generating local employment, stimulating improvements to community infrastructure. Amongst other forms of tourism, hill tourism is considered to be one of the important revenue earners. Tourists are more attracted towards mountains, landscape, clean air, aesthetic pleasure and hill tourism is endowed with all its natural ingredients. Darjeeling “the queen of the hills” is very much rich in natural resources and therefore has been a main attraction of tourists worldwide. Darjeeling is mostly famous for three T’s Tea, Tourism and Toy Train and these are also the most significant contributors of Darjeeling economy. Its economy is largely based on tea agriculture and tourism where the former has played a significant role in the development of the region since the beginning. So the present study deals with the zonal pattern of tourism(TCM) in the region which contributes to economic development and sustainable development. This paper also discusses that there is the tourism growth is haphazard because of which the question of sustainable tourism is questioned.

Key words: TCM, haphazard, sustainable development.

I. INTRODUCTION

Tourism has been recognized to be an important form of economic development in developing countries, contributing to foreign exchange earnings, gross domestic product and employment opportunities (de Kadt, 1979) , and this trend continues to date. Tourism is considered as a factor that contributes to a higher standard of living, able to give effect in terms of attracting investments and spending, which creates greater benefits than costs (Brida, Osti & Faccioli, 2011). In less developed countries the level of income is usually low, the distribution of income and wealth is usually uneven, there are high levels of unemployment and underemployment, the industrial developments are barely existing, there is a strong dependence on agriculture and the service and manufacturing industries are usually under foreign ownership. Darjeeling is one such example. Developing tourism in less developed poor countries is also appealing since the profits usually are higher for the industrialists here, as prices tend to be a lot cheaper due to the low standard of living. In the year 1986, Tourism has been declared as ‘Tourism Industry’ by the government of India.

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