Sustainable Tourism Planning: A Study on Sikkim Himalaya

Apparently tourism as a harmless industry it cannot be considered as completely pollution-free. But uncontrolled tourism can create environmental pollution as well as socio-cultural difficulty. The structure of society and economy in a particular tourists location, particularly in the developing countries, have been found to be changing rapidly under the growing pressure of high spending and free-living affluent tourists from the developed parts of the world. The concept of sustainable tourism is the outcome of this global concern over tourism. In true sense all forms of tourism appreciating and preserving the environmental quality without disturbing the maintained resource base are considered to be sustainable tourism. Thus sustainable tourism is the development of tourism in a place of interest by maintaining its ecological set up; hence the influx of tourists at any given time must not exceed its total carrying capacity. Sustainable tourism offers a form of tourism development, which accepts the principles of sustainability as well as offers economic opportunities.