Sustainable Tourism : Only way to promote and sustain tourism Industry in India

Sustainable tourism is the concept of visiting a place as a tourist and trying to make a positive impact on the environment, society, and economy. ( Source : Wikipedia ). 

PC/Source  ( BBC )

The pic is of Mount Everest, Yes, if we can clean the toughest and highest peak of the world then why not other places. We are irresponsible because we have not been able to visualize the impact of irregularities of waste management and our laid back attitude towards a particular habitat.  

As a traveler/tourist are you ?

• Throwing plastic bottles / wrappers / other plastic materials on roads/remote places.

• Extensiveness using toiletries.

• Regularly washing cloths on mountain side hotels/inns as we do at our homes

• Not refiling water bottles

• Overlooking small irregularities of throwing small plastic wrappers such as of a chocolate.  

• Demanding luxury even at remotest villages of the country. ( This creates market pressure of supply)

I have been a traveler all across my life. I can remember last two decades when I started visiting places across length and breadth of this sub continent called India. Born and brought up in the Gangatic plains, started professional studies in old still young national capital Delhi. Done my B.Tech around Sahyadries, near to Goa - Dharwad. Worked in Bangalore and now semi settled in Delhi . Like me many people must have seen places dying. I have seen and experienced personally what "Development" has done to hill stations of India. Kodaikanal, Ooty, Nainital, Shimla, Darjeeling and list goes on. Even Leh - Laddakh, Spiti and entire Kangra Valley is no more a hill station for me but a place where

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garbage is dumped from across India. Believe me government plays a very small role in maintaining these places, Its we the travelers ( not tourists ) who need to take responsibility in saving our tourist destinations. Development ensures every body can visit every place across the nation but there are certain moral responsibility towards particular habitat that we need to follow and teach people who don't know. When I was in my last days of Jharkhand visit this year May I read a survey and the survey says, people are not happy with the climate change in Ranchi, Hazaribagh but they have done nothing to stop it. Same goes with the entire country. Still Jharkhand has 28 % of the forest cover area and I would urge people of Jharkhand to maintain it atleast. 

Now there is no lake, Was crossing through my old apartment near IBLURU lake in Bangalore after a gap of 36 months this June and suddenly I  realized there used to be a lake and now, its no more.  Urbanization and creation of concrete forest will give us nothing. I am sorry to say but garden city is no more a garden city. The low voting turn around, garbage problem, lack of "know how" towards sustainable development. Shouldn't we expect more from techno - well educated crowd ?.

The list goes on, wherever I go I see people, travelers least bothered about sustainability of the place. My recent visit to Parashar lake was a question on my responsibility when locals were afraid after seeing the bulk coming to the places this season.

Why are locals afraid? Only because of habits that a common Indian traveler possess. We don't want to come out of our comfort zone. We still want all the facilities in each and every habitat and conditions. The local area gets impacted by market pressure and theory of demand and supply. They start creating. Same kind of market as we have in urban areas.

( Source : Maverick Times) 

Under serious market pressure , even the remotest villages of India are providing all the plastic packed materials to tourists and travelers. Toiletries, packed bottled water, cold drinks and chips are main source of garbage. We can't blame locales as they are under huge market pressure by the demand. Only way to reduce at this time is to reduce demand of such items in tourist places and create demand for sustainable local products / food and start refilling bottles. This is a habit a traveler should have, a tourist should develop and a local to start following since day one. Days are very near when we'll loose many tourist destinations across India and future generation will enjoy the beauty only in pictures. 

Steps required to start this sustainable tourism in India. 

• Training local hospitality partners 
• Start a nation wide campaign with the help of bloggers and influences to  create and maintain a sustainable demand and supply market. 
• All tour guides must follow strict rules.
• Travel companies like other do's and don'ts publish some strict rules regarding sustainable tourism. 
• Start avoiding packed bottled water and create a habit of refilling at least in mountains

Looking to create a team for this campaign. I am positive of creating a team for this.