International Journal of Environment, Ecology, Family and Urban Studies (IJEEFUS) ISSN 2250-0065 Vol. 3, Issue 2, Jun 2013, 57-68 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd. A STUDY OF CHANGING SCENARIO OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN GUJARAT PAWAN K. SHUKLA1 & A. A. ANSARI2 1Lecturer, Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, India 2Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, India ABSTRACT Now a day tourism industry is becoming one of the important economic sectors, which impels the growth & development of many of the parts of the world. Tourism provides a marketable product, which does not depend on raw materials from outside. This paper highlights the changing dimensions of tourism industry in Gujarat. The Hospitality, the foundation on which the edifice of Gujarat tourism built, is indigenous to Gujarat. The changing scenario from hospitality to leisure, recreation, nature-based ecotourism, environmental, sports etc. are the major features, that makes Gujarat is one of the important destinations among other states of India notably Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Historically the Gujarat remained one of the most important tourist destinations among the coastal region of India. From Gujarat every year a huge number of tourists visit other corners of the world, but its strength to be host is not yet been fully utilized due to the lack of information highway. Gujarat a mosaic of landforms with various relief features varying in ages starting from pre-cambrian to recent is a unique landscape endowed with. It offers colourful experience to its travelers packed with pleasant surprises, endowed with forest & deserts, hills & plains, seas & lakes, tribal hinterlands & special interest destination with a strong rail, roads, & air networks. The areas where more consideration is required are the poor infrastructure, ineffectual marketing & efficient management of resource which may ensure the tourist wonder. The Government policies are been introduced to eradicate the problems associated, but still not implemented. Recently the government of Gujarat has taken various steps to develop tourism in Gujarat, one of that is making, Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, as a grand ambassador to speed up the process of tourism development in Gujarat, which has worked up to some extent but not up to the mark. The visit of Mr. Bachchan has opens up to major loopholes in the infrastructure development. Most of tourism planning in the region appears to be ad hoc. Therefore it is essential to move away from such an ad hoc approach to draw up definite plans of action, charting out the future directions clearly. KEYWORDS: Tourism Industry, Nature-Based Ecotourism, Recreation INTRODUCTION Today, in the world the tourism industry is the fastest and largest growing industry in the world. The concept of travel & tourism in Gujarat started a long date back ago, when Portuguese people entered through the gateway of India (Surat, Gujarat) and developed trade in India. Since then the State is receiving innumerable number of tourists for different purposes. During the medieval times, Surat, Bharuch and Khambhat, which were among the most active ports of the 52 which existed in Gujarat-had many traders sailing out with fine silk and spices to Thailand’s shores. Tourism is the act of travel for the purpose of recreation and business, and the provision of services for this act. People travel, doing so, stay outside their usual environment for certain period of time for leisure, business and other purposes. It actually includes the movement of people for all purpose. Earlier the tourism was concentrated only to the visit outside of residential areas, 58 Pawan K. Shukla & A. A. Ansari while the 21st century tourism concept incorporates their more meaningful activities. Tourism today does not linger only to economic resource development, but it also includes social and political harmonious relations among people as well as countries and also more meaningfully to the natural world. The impact of tourists visit in the destination area and interacting with the local people, itself results in both the quantitative and qualitative resource development. During their stay in the destination, tourists interact with local residents and the outcome of their relationship is, the changes in the host individual’s and the host community’s quality of life, value systems, labour divisions, family relationships, attitudes, behavioral pattern, ceremonies and creative expressions (Fox, 1977; Cohen, 1984; Pizam & Milman, 1984). Interactions of tourists do not end here, rather it has multi-facet and has its implication on the natural surroundings as well. Tourism is a commercial organization dealing with operating, holding & a visit to places of interest. It is a major socio-cultural phenomena of the new age society & is related with economic mobility and thereby several consequences. As tourism is a highly competitive industry; the traveler has a wide range of choices and looks for good value for money1. At present changing scenario of the tourism required more activity oriented tourist destinations, where people do not only enjoy by watching but also can participate in various games, sports, adventures, cultural activity etc. Various ways of marketing strategies are taken into consideration to attract tourists, especially in Gujarat. The various types of professional planning such as spatial and landuse planning, strict architectural controls etc. are being carried out for appropriate facilitation of services. OBJECTIVES The main objective of the present study is to find out the changing role of tourism development in Gujarat. How the different ways & type of marketing system is serving in the massive inflow of tourists in the study area. Other than above mentioned objectives the paper also highlights that how the various resources are helping in the tourism development and how the tourism is helping in resource development in the region. METHODOLOGY The study is based on the personal observations (few places) & available secondary sources. The secondary sources include the report of provided by Gujarat Tourism Corporation Limited (GITCL), various articles at state, national & international level. Further the historic approach has also been taken into consideration for the tourism development in Gujarat. Now days, the places of natural surroundings is becoming a major attraction for tourists interests, because of its pure natural values. The tourist as observer, have a significant role in changing pattern of utilizing the resources & bringing the spatial variation in it over a region, which have direct or indirect influence on tourism environment. In this viewpoint, the present attempt has been generalized to understand the impact of environment on tourism development. Figure 1: Location Map of Study Area 1 Pratap R., Prasad, k., “Tourism Geography”, Shree Publishers, New Delhi, 2005, pp. 298. A Study of Changing Scenario of Tourism Development in Gujarat 59 STUDY AREA The study area is located between the latitude of 20° 01’N & 24° 07’N; longitude of 68° 04’E & 74° 04’E, encompassing an area of 196,024 km². Gujarat enjoys dominantly a tropical monsoonal climate. Since the study area is not concentrated to any particular place or point here the Gujarat as a whole is taken as a study area. The current world tourism contribution to GDP is 11%. The current Indian tourism contribution to GDP is 1.8% and it is targeted to reach 6% in the next decade. If this can be re-targeted to reach 10% an additional 1.2 crore jobs can be created. A majority of the 2 crore NRIs, are Gujarati who are prosperous as professionals and traders. This untapped resource can be motivated to become prospective tourists and investors in this sector and the GDP level can be improved considerably. LITERATURE’S RIVEWS Not much literature is available regarding the changing dimension of tourism industry in Gujarat. But some of author’s did wonderful job in representing & maintaining Gujarat as important destinations either in the form of poems, articles or book chapters. Some of them could be explained below: Vyas Rajnee: In his book originally called as ‘The Asmita of Gujarat’, he mesmerizes about wakeful responsibilities for a Gujarati, to serve the nation. He has covered almost all the aspects of the life of Gujarat. It is obvious that books which incorporate not hundreds but thousands of details are not going to be completed and total in themselves1. The author did not only explains the pride of Gujarati’s but also the major attractive features of Gujarat, beginning from its history of formation to distinguish land, coastline, glittering lamps, folk-life, forestry and ecology etc. Makarand Maheta: He expresses his ideas on the historical development of tourism in India with special reference to Gujarat. In the ancient time the ostentatious temples and King’s Palaces were the great attraction for tourists. He also mentioned that at that time the Gujarati’s also did trade in extreme East Asia and regions of Africa and laid the foundation of trade and travel. Actually the writer tried to give more emphasis on the origin of different tourist places with lots of ups and downs in India with special reference to Gujarat. M. J. Parmar: According to him, “it will be worth to say that Gujarat is a type of land of travelers”. He has given main emphasis on the religious tourism and on the basis of the political, economic and cultural life of Gujarat he derived that in every work of human life is full of religion. The people from Shavdharma, Vaishnavdharma, Jaindharma, Shaktidharma, Islamdharma and Parasidharma came to Gujarat. Rahman S.A.: In his beautiful India Series of Gujarat, he mentioned about Gujarat’s land, people, heritage, history, geography, economy, polity and tourism etc. which is a gift for all scholars, researchers and general readers. He gave a little idea about the major attractions of Gujarat such as national parks, sanctuaries, temples, hilly places, archaeological sites etc.