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Archives of Business Research – Vol. 9, No. 4
Publication Date: April 25, 2021
DOI:10.14738/abr.94.10044.
Venugopalan, T. (2021). Sustainable Destination Management in India: Perception of Stakeholders on Sustainability of Kerala
Tourism. Archives of Business Research, 9(4). 218-237.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Sustainable Destination Management in India: Perception of
Stakeholders on Sustainability of Kerala Tourism
Dr. Venugopalan T.
ABSTRACT
This research paper explores the economic, environmental, and socio-cultural
sustainability of tourist destinations in Kerala, a southern state of India, from the
perspective of tourists, based on primary research. The exploratory factor analysis
(EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modelling (SEM)
are utilized for examining and analysing the sustainability of the tourist destination
of Kerala. The research findings on environmental pressure validate that tourism
has been exerting huge pressure on the environment. The environment
management mechanisms adopted by the government and tourism industry have
been effective in mitigating the adverse environmental impacts of tourism. Tourism
has been succeeded in achieving economic sustainability by empowering the local
communities. Destination governance mechanisms are directly contributing to
destinations’ sustainability. The research findings also establish that tourism
development in Kerala is socially and culturally sustainable. Thus, this research
concludes that tourism development is ensuring the environmental, economic, and
social sustainability of tourist destinations of Kerala.
Key Words: Development, growth. natural resources, renewable energy, non-renewable
energy, environmental impact, pollution, sustainability, commercialisation, heritages,
destination management.
INTRODUCTION
Tourism plays a dominant position in the socio-economic development of nations by
contributing precious foreign exchange, generating employment opportunities, helping
infrastructure development, alleviating poverty, protecting and preserving natural and socio- cultural heritage, and maintaining peace and stability in the tourist destinations [1-4}.
However, the massive growth of tourism and the concentration of tourist activities in certain
destinations have created perceptible stress and strain on local society and resources [5-7]. The
massive level of tourism development and the lack of concerns about the local community in
the tourism plans, policies and programmes have led to dissatisfaction and disgruntlement
among the local communities, which are striving hard to protect and preserve their distinct
culture and heritage [8,9] The reaction and resistance of stakeholders against mass tourism are
more organized in all tourist destinations [10,11] Recognising the adverse impacts of tourism
on the environment, economy and society, the tourism industry and governments have shifted
their focus on making tourism more sustainable [12]. Sustainable tourism has emerged as the
most comprehensive approach to mitigate the adverse impact of tourism and to achieve the
sustainable development of tourist destinations.
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Venugopalan, T. (2021). Sustainable Destination Management in India: Perception of Stakeholders on Sustainability of Kerala Tourism. Archives of
Business Research, 9(4). 218-237.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.94.10044
Sustainable tourism is defined as “the tourism development that meets the needs of present
tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunities for the future. It is
envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and
aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological
processes, and biological diversity and life support systems”, UNWTO [13]. Sustainability
encompasses the environmental, economic and socio-cultural dimensions of tourist destination
development. Sustainable tourism development necessitates the integration of all pertinent
stakeholders and powerful political leadership for ensuring extensive involvement and
consensus-building. However, achieving sustainable tourism is a relentless process and it
requires persistent monitoring of impacts and introduces preventive and corrective measures
whenever necessary, UNWTO [14,15].
Sustainable destination management is an important aspect of sustainable tourism
development which helps to manage the diverse resources and activities and to support the
integration stakeholders through appropriate policies, programmes and actions [16].
Destination management is a comprehensive approach “that involves the strategic organisation
and operative decisions to manage the processes of definition, promotion and
commercialisation of the tourism products. It also includes the generation of manageable flows
of incoming tourists who are balanced and sustainable, and sufficient to meet the economic
needs of the stakeholders involved in the tourist destinations” [17]. According to Conaghan et
al. [18], sustainable destination management is an integrated approach that contemplates the
management of the tourist place operations, administration of the environment and
conservation of core natural, cultural and heritage resources, maintenance of safety and
security, disaster planning, and development of human resources for sustainable management
of destinations. Thus, sustainable destination management encompasses the management of
various components of tourism destinations in such a way that it generates economic
prosperity without degrading the factors that have created and enhanced the competitive
position of the destinations [18].
Tourism encompasses multiple stakeholders such as central government and state
governments, host communities, public sector undertakings, private sector including the
tourism business operators, who always represent different environmental, economic and
socio-cultural interests that complicate the processes of collaboration with each other and the
decision making for managing the tourist destinations. Making tourism more sustainable, the
destination managers have to address the stakeholders’ concerns and fulfil their aspirations
and mitigate the impacts of tourism while planning, developing and managing operations at all
levels of authority [18,19].
Sustainability has been recognised as the philosophy of the developmental process of Indian
tourism. Numerous plans, policies and programmes have been introduced and implemented
for enhancing the sustainability of tourist destinations across the country. Kerala, the
southernmost state of India, has been recognized as the model of sustainable tourism in India.
Kerala tourism offers a wide spectrum of tourism products including beach tourism, adventure
tourism, nature tourism, health tourism, rural tourism, MICE tourism, etc. The tourism industry
is an important segment of the Kerala economy and the government has integrated sustainable
tourism as a developmental strategy and has introduced the concept of responsible tourism for
planning, developing and managing destination for achieving inclusive economic growth.
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Tourism literature is flooded with conceptual research papers on tourism development.
However, there have been a limited number of empirical researches have conducted on
sustainable tourism development and the effectiveness of the tourism plans and programmes
adopted by the central and state government and the tourist industry. Hence, this research
paper is an attempt to examine and evaluate comprehensively the effectiveness of plans and
programmes introduced by the government of India and Kerala state for achieving
environmental, economic and social sustainability of tourist destinations. Hence, the research
findings may contribute to the tourism literature immensely. The research findings may also
guide tourism planners while managing tourist destinations.
This research paper has twin objectives. The first objective is to examine the impacts of tourism
on the environmental, economic and social spheres of Kerala from the stakeholders’
perspective. The second objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of tourism development in
achieving environmental, economic and social sustainability of tourist destinations in Kerala.
Primary research was conducted for appraising the sustainability of tourist destinations based
on a questionnaire survey conducted at various tourist places across Kerala state. This research
paper has utilised structural equation modelling (SEM) for examining and analysing the
sustainability of tourist destinations of Kerala. The research findings validate that tourism has
been putting huge pressure on the environment and the environmental management system
implemented by the government has helped to mitigate the adverse impacts of tourism on the
environment. The findings unequivocally establish that tourism destination management has
ensured the economic sustainability of tourist destinations without compromising the socio- cultural sustainability of Kerala.
This paper is organised as follows. Section 2 provides a discussion on previous researches on
sustainable tourism. Section 3, research methodology describes the sample, methods and
materials adopted for measuring the variables and analysing the data and interpretation of the
results. Section 4, results and discussion, examines the data structure and empirically validating
the research hypotheses using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis and structural
equation modelling. Section 5, Conclusion, concludes the research paper and discusses future
directions for research.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Tourism exerts profound and far-reaching consequences on the environmental, economic and
socio-cultural aspects of tourist destinations [20]. Tourist destinations endowed with beautiful
landscapes, rich biodiversity, unique heritage sites and vibrant indigenous culture provide
destination competitiveness in the tourist markets. The environmental impacts of tourism are
the degradation of the environment, depletion of natural resources, destruction of biodiversity
and the ecological equilibrium of destinations [20-22]. (The tourism industry consumes
resources, generates waste and involves large scale infrastructure development, which has
been leading to the degradation and devastation of the environment [23]. Water is a precious
resource and is being extensively overused by hotels for the personal use of tourists and
recreational facilities, which lead to wastage and degradation of water resources [24]. The
concentration of tourism activities around the natural and historical heritages and other public
places have created a huge amount of waste [12]. The tourism industry is also responsible for
air, water and land pollution in many destinations. The development of tourism infrastructure
and excessive concentration of tourism activities are exerting huge pressure on land resources,
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Venugopalan, T. (2021). Sustainable Destination Management in India: Perception of Stakeholders on Sustainability of Kerala Tourism. Archives of
Business Research, 9(4). 218-237.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.94.10044
including forests and coastal regions. [4,20,24] The indiscriminate tourism infrastructure
development and construction activities have led to devastating impacts on biodiversity and
ecological degradation in these destinations [25].
Sustainable destination management includes the implementation of appropriate mechanisms
for conservation of the environment by mitigating the adverse impacts of tourism on
environmental pollution, exploitation of land and water resources, and destruction of forests,
wildlife and coastal regions. It also includes developing a sustainable transport system, sewage
treatment and waste management system, and promoting environmental education and
renewable energy [22].
Tourism is an engine of inclusive economic growth and provides huge employment
opportunities to all sections of society [26]. Tourism development can bring about
improvement in the living standard, generation of employment, reduction in mass poverty,
increase in domestic and foreign investment and improvement in infrastructure and
recreational facilities. Tourism is an effective mechanism for underdeveloped and developing
economies for eradicating eternal poverty, improving living standard and enhancing the quality
of life of the resident communities [27].
The adverse economic impacts emerging from tourism are the decline in traditional
employment, increase in seasonal unemployment, high inflation, increasing property prices
and leakage effect, which restrict the local communities from holding and retaining the gains
from tourism [7, 3]. Tourism is a seasonal business for many destinations and those who are
completely dependent on tourism may face the problem of unemployment or under- employment during off-seasons [21]. The increased tourism activities shoot up the prices of
goods and services, which is a big disadvantage for the local community. [28,29]. Sustainable
tourism development is inevitable for bringing about sustainable economic development in the
destination. “Sustainable tourism mitigates the adverse economic impacts and warrants viable
and long-term economic operations, provides socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that
are fairly distributed, stable employment, income-earning opportunities and social service to
host communities, and contributes to poverty alleviation” UNWTO [15].
Tourism brings about favourable socio-cultural impacts. The income generated by tourism
helps in improving the infrastructure, protecting and conserving historical and cultural
heritages and maintaining public places that attract more tourists [2]. The interaction between
tourists and the host population involves a learning process in which people understand the
culture, ideas and values of respective countries, and it also helps to reinvigorate cultural pride
among the host communities [3,30,20].
The adverse socio-cultural effects associated with tourism are demonstration effect,
acculturation, commercialisation of culture, increasing crime and prostitution, health hazards,
displacement of communities, commercialisation of culture and cultural clashes between
tourists and host communities [31,3,10,20,4]. Tourism leads to commodification and loss of
authenticity of culture and identity when local communities change themselves as per the taste
of tourists [32]. The increasing antisocial activities such as sex tourism, sexual exploitation of
women and children, gambling, drug abuse and alcoholism, lead to host irritation
[31,3,10,20,29,4]. Thus, tourism can not only protect and promote historical and cultural
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heritage but also damage the social structure, rich and diverse socio-cultural traditions and
local livelihood. “Sustainable tourism respects the socio-cultural authenticity of host
communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and
contributes to intercultural understanding and tolerance,” UNWTO [15].
Sustainable tourism is a comprehensive approach, which integrates all the stakeholders of
tourism for mitigating the adverse environmental, economic and socio-cultural impacts created
by the complexity of interactions between the tourism industry, tourists, natural environment
and local communities. The destination management system is an important ingredient of
sustainable tourism, which encompasses a wide spectrum of functions from framing tourism
policies and programmes, creation and maintenance of tourism infrastructure, and marketing
of tourism products. General safety and security are the main concern of tourists and the
destinations should provide a safe and secure environment for visitors. The tourism policy,
efficient law and order system, expediency of the legal system, general safety and security
measures provided at destinations, a conducive visa regime, and good behaviour and positive
attitude of officials towards tourists are also important destination characteristics that can
draw tourists from domestic and international tourist markets. Sustainable destination
management envisages the development, management and coordination of various tourism
activities and implementation of policies with multi-stakeholder co-operation and
collaboration such as tourism business operators, host population and NGOs, for conservation
and preservation of the environment, UNWTO [15].
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Research Hypothesis
This research paper has formulated four alternative research hypotheses for empirically
verifying the sustainability of tourist destinations of Kerala based on the review of literature,
(Figure I). These hypotheses are stated as follows: -
• H1: Environmental pressure (EP) is negatively related to sustainable destination
management (SDM).
• H2: Environmental management (EM) is positively contributing to sustainable
destination management (SDM).
• H:3 Economic sustainability (ES) is positively related to sustainable destination
management (SDM).
• H4: Social pressure (SP) is negatively related to sustainable destination management
(SDM).