Sustainable Development Goals

Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards

Can community-based tourism contribute to sustainable development? Evidence from residents’ perceptions of the sustainability

Homestay tourism is popular in many destinations; it adds authentic sociocultural richness to the tourist's experience. For a nation that cannot make extensive infrastructural investment a priority but which possesses an abundance of tourism richness in remote communities, homestays are an attractive alternative tourism product. This paper discusses a case study of Barpak, located in the Gorkha District of Western Nepal. The study suggests homestays are congruent with Nepal's destination image. The essence of Nepalese tourism lies in naturally beautiful rural hills and mountains and its indigenous communities with their mystical lifestyle and culture. These natural and cultural attributes can be showcased best through homestays. This paper proposes homestays as a pro-women tourism opportunity that promotes sustainable community development by fostering gender equality. Female ownership of homestay businesses secures women's avenues for income generation and involves them in mainstream development. The stu...

Homestays as an Alternative Tourism Product for Sustainable Community Development: A Case Study of Women-Managed Tourism Product in Rural Nepal

Women in Motion: Globalization, State Policies, and Labor Migration in Asia

Kerala, a state in Southwestern India, evolved into a prominent international tourism destination primarily by linking tourism experiences with nature. Although sufficient significance has been accorded to tourism as a development strategy in Kerala, tourism's contributions to the development processes and the sustainability of tourism activities remain unexplored. Though tourism impacts have been extensively studied, researchers have rarely compared socio-cultural transformations in destinations with and without a planned intervention in tourism. This paper compares residents' perceptions on socio-cultural impacts of tourism at Kumily and Kumarakom in Kerala. The article explores whether tourism activities in Kumily, with its planned intervention, are more sustainable than in Kumarakom, without any interventions. The conversion of ex-poachers into forest protectors and the involvement of the marginalized people in community-based ecotourism are a few among the many transformations that have occurred at K...

Socio-cultural transformations through tourism: a comparison of residents' perspectives at two destinations in Kerala, India.

This article presents a modified water poverty index that captures several waterscape attributes to better understand complex issues surrounding water. Household surveys (n = 300), water quality tests (n = 375) and qualitative methods were deployed to examine 14 post-tsunami settlements in Nagapattinam and Karaikal Districts (India) through the lens of water. Data were used to develop a contextualized, participant-driven water poverty index to measure water poverty at several scales. Statistical tests revealed significant differences between the two districts (p ≤ .0001) and between rural and urban areas within each district (p ≤ .0001). Three weight schemes (one dictated entirely by research participants) produced analogous outcomes though predicated on different indicator arrangements.

Development and application of a multi-scalar, participant-driven water poverty index in post-tsunami India

This article analyses three issues: (i) female migration from northeastern states of India to two southern cities of India, Chennai and Bangalore, employed in the beauty-care sector; (ii) the broad...

Northeastern Beauty-care Female Workers in South India: Experiencing the ‘Body’, Economic Inclusion and Social Exclusion as Migrants:

Field studies on household water treatment and safe storage (HWTS) suggest that positive health outcomes are strongly linked to user compliance. We investigated factors that influenced compliance i...

Prema Rajagopalan

Papers

Socio-cultural transformations through tourism: a comparison of residents' perspectives at two destinations in Kerala, India.

Development and application of a multi-scalar, participant-driven water poverty index in post-tsunami India

Northeastern Beauty-care Female Workers in South India: Experiencing the ‘Body’, Economic Inclusion and Social Exclusion as Migrants:

Assessing Participant Compliance With Point-of-Use Water Treatment: An Exploratory Investigation: