Corona virus Pandemic and Tourism in North East India: Reemphasizing the Principles of Sustainability- (Dr. Barnali Patowary)

The world at present is reeling under the pandemic caused by the different mutants of the corona virus (COVID-19) and as the fear of the virus entering human body and affecting the immune system is lingering everywhere, it has already infected the world economy and we are poised for harder times ahead. While almost all the sectors have felt the blow, the tourism and hospitality sector has been most directly jolted by the epidemic. There is a silent fear of being trapped under this crisis for a longer period of time, particularly for the travel industry and hence has necessitated the industry players to think of the many survival and revival strategies to remain afloat in the market in the coming days.

As one of the survival strategies, it has been very well discussed in the last few days by the travel fraternity, that a destination in order to remain competitive in the travel market would time and again require promotion of the unseen or the untold legacy of its own. A tourism attraction can be anything that is unusual or interesting for the potential tourist which he does not get to experience in his normal environment. It can range from a unique cuisine, chirping of an exotic bird or a haunting story from a far off land. We believe that once the travel world gets back to normalcy, the less explored destinations would have the privilege of being the host to theselected few travellers who would obviously prefer qualitative experience against quantitative encounters.

The North East India, often presented as the ‘yet to be explored destination’, has the vibrant nature and culture as its unique selling preposition. One of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, the region has natural richness in the form of its diverse flora and fauna, mighty rivers, verdant valleys, hilly streams, vast tea gardens and the indigenous tribes and their lifestyles. Since natural and cultural heritages are the most vulnerable of all the tourism products, we need to adapt sustainable practices for marketing and implementing tourism based on these resources. Sustainable tourism has been the key word here. It is a concept based on the new paradigms of development that involves the community as one of the major stakeholders that can reap the benefits of the industry and in return contribute in maintaining the natural and cultural elements as tourist attractions. But going deeper into the understanding of sustainable tourism, we also need to remind ourselves time and again that the prime objective of any sustainable tourism development project is to provide an alternate or additional income and not be the sole income for the community where it takes place. It is imperative that the local community does not become over-dependent on tourism, which could result in loss of cultural values and would make the community vulnerable to fluctuations in tourism demand. The Uganda Community Tourism Association (UCOTA), established for the successful implementation of ecotourism in the beautiful plateau of Uganda, Africa, states that while community tourism aim to supplement rural income, the tourism activities should not dominate over the traditional agricultural based economies.

The northeastern part of the country which has been slowly witnessing the pace of industrialization, due to infrastructural or other reasons, is till date an agro-based economy, where almost 80 per cent of the total population is rural. However, it is seen that a majority of the total population of the region is based on subsistence farming and not market driven. The International Standard Classification of Occupations, Geneva, has made a distinction between market-oriented and subsistence workers and urged for a clear classification of both in the national index of occupation titles. It defines subsistence farming as the engagement in agricultural, forestry and fishery activities with the main aim of producing goods for consumption by the worker’s own household with or without little surplus for sale in return for some cash income. We might agree that this could be one of the reasons why there has been a decline in local income generation in the traditional self-sufficient villages. The lack of enterprising attitude may be attributed to the large-scale migration of young people to urban cities in search of better employment. However, the importance of the same (subsistence farming) has been highlighted in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, 1994, “in the national interest, the maintenance of these communities is desirable, because they embody a free and independent way of life which, in a civilization predominantly urban and industrial in character, is worth preserving for its own intrinsic value”.

Another important aspect covered by the OECD, the tourism committee, while highlighting the distinctive features of tourism activity taking place in a rural setup, predominated by agrarian and forest ecosystems, is that while in urban tourism the interests are self-supporting, rural tourism is one in which tourism supports other interests. Hence it is time that the tourism stakeholders of the northeastern region should consider this principle of sustainability and reevaluate the economic linkages between tourism and other economic sectors such as agriculture, fishing, horticulture, forestry, dairy and handicrafts and move towards an environmentally sustainable economy. Many research works have shown how tourism can help in strengthening the agricultural economic linkages and sometimes the combination of direct tourism income and profits from farm sales can reverse the trend of out-migration in rural areas. A living example of the same is the Ziro valley of the state of Arunachal Pradesh. The region inhabited by the Apatani tribe is known for the traditional land use practices and rich ecological knowledge of natural resources management and conservation. ‘Ngunu Ziro’, an NGO based in the Apatani valley, has been working with various tourism development projects in Ziro initiated with the home-stay projects where the idea was to bring the benefit of tourism directly to the community level and to give the tourists a unique experience of the Apatani eco-cultural landscape and true flavour of the way of life of the Apatanis. The NGO has been closely working with Self-Help Groups and Farmers’ Clubs by imparting training for home-based health care and income generation activities like community tourism, organic farming, weaving to name a few. This way, the community is getting supplementary income from the tourism sector and the younger generations are also taking a pride in the preservation of their age-old culture and tradition.

Forest Peoples Programme (FPP, 2016) in their survey report on the status and trends of traditional occupations have advocated for reevaluation of the status and participation of local people in traditional occupations, reframing of state policies for integrating indigenous practices in the education and development programmes and adopting a broader approach towards preservation of the traditional rights for resource management. Therefore, we believe, in a region like North East India, with unique geographical identity and cultural diversity, the tourism stakeholders, instead of planning for an aggressive tourism marketing policy (such as Assam Tourism’s promotional strategy through hosting the Filmfare Awards, 2020 with an investment of more than Rs. 20 to 30 crore) should rather concentrate on the possibilities of strengthening the traditional occupations of the communities and save the destinations from falling prey to the fluctuating economic returns based solely on tourism activities. This is important because time and again tourism is directly or indirectly impacted by major global events like 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA or regional political tension like the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) or other health outbreaks.

However, we believe that like all the previous challenges faced by the industry, tourism shall revive with new norms and trends. The Coronavirus pandemic has undoubtedly given us the learning that our natural environment makes human life possible and our identity lies in the cultural environment where we reside. It is time to be resilient to change and promote conscious travel by enriching the local businesses keeping in line with the vision of ‘Going local’ and supplementing the tourism income.