U nexpected 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: Agriculture Secondary: Tourism

Decline of primary economy Econ omic small ness Producti on cost Price fall Crop diseases Natural calamitie s

Primary Vs secondary economy PrimarySecondary Tourism Agriculture 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  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 : ,91, : ,25, : ,56, : ,95, : , 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

Tourism Primary economy 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

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