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Abstract
The present study undertaken in Manas National Park, adapting the model derived from the work of Sandbrook (2008) and Lacher and Nepal (2010a, 2010b), has found that tourism business owned non-local actors are more responsible for revenue leakage compared to tourism business owned by local actors i.e. 86 % and 24.5% respectively. Some local NGOs are involved in the tourism business adopting some unique strategies and have identified an alternative way of livelihood for the local communities living in the fringe villages of the park. The paper concludes providing some policy implication for increasing local involvement in the tourism business.
Key words: Community participation, Manas National Park, NGOs, Retain revenue, Revenue leakage.
Tourism is regarded as one of the important segments of the economy that can enhance a tremendous economic growth without regional and income disparity (UNWTO, 2009). Observing the importance of tourism industry, particularly in developing countries, the UNWTO has introduced the programme of sustainable tourism for eliminating poverty programme in 2003 and this programme has been implemented in many developing countries. However, it is seen that the less developed regions are unable to take full advantage of tourism (Scheyven 1999). Number of authors like Lindberg, Enriquez and Sproule (1996), Weaver (1998), Walpole and Goodwin (2000), Mbaiwa (2005), Akama and Kieti (2007), Stone and Wall (2004) etc argued that tourism has failed to promote local development and improve the livelihood of local community in LDCs.
Some authors criticized tourism on the ground that benefits often accrue to a small section of the local population (Britton, 2004; Kiss, 2004). Because the host communities (Sandbrook 2008) have little control over tourism development since they have lack of ability to ensure positive outcomes (Scheyvens 1999). This is because; the host has operational, structural and cultural limitations to participation in tourism (Tosun 2000, 2006). Lacher and Nepal (2010a, 2010b), Linderberg et al (1996) etc argued that the failure of the tourism sector is due to high extent of leakages of tourism revenue. Though some scholars believe that alternative forms of tourism such as backpacking tourism, adventure tourism, cultural tourism, eco-tourism (Weaver 2001), nature based tourism (Rinne and Saastamoinen 2005), community based tourism (Wearing and Me Donald, 2002), pro-pro tourism (Asleyet et al. 2001) etc as...