Choudhury, Rashmi R., & Saurabh Kumar Dixit (2020, December). Indigenous events and community perspective towards cultural tourism in Meghalaya, India: A Q-method analysis. Man & Development, 42(4), 83-102.
Abstract: Although the land of North-East India has enormous tourism potentials, still very few responses mark the land as ‘Paradise unexplored’ in the tourism map of the country. The splendid natural resources, diversified tribal communities with ethnic traditions and more importantly their indigenous cultural practices and events throughout the year enrich the tourism potentiality. The cultural events are not only treated as tourism attraction but also considered as a tool for regional progression and bridging the gap between the tribal and non-tribal space. This paper is planned to study the interrelationship of tourism and indigenous cultural events of northeastern state Meghalaya considering the social values of the communities and their perspective towards tourism. Q method is used in this research to study the human subjectivity of indigenous cultural events and tourism prospects. The study reveals three factors namely Indigenous identity and conservation, Tourism development and Priority to community which describe the community intention towards cultural tourism. Cultural beliefs, mythologies and indigenous traditions of communities restrict the representation of cultural events as tourism products as it is believed as having an impact on social values. The findings of this study shall have practical implications in policy framing and sustainable management of indigenous cultural events.
Rashmi Ranjan Choudhury <rrcrashmiranjan@gmail.com> and Saurabh Kumar Dixit <saurabh5sk@yahoo.com> are in the Department of Tourism and Hotel Management, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya, India.
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