Community participation in minimizing leakage: A case study in manas national park

Though tourism is advocated for removal of poverty in the developing countries, the complete benefit of tourism does not accrue to the host community due to high amount of leakage of tourism revenue. This leakage is due to the dependence on the import of commodity, service and human resources. The local community's involvement reduces the leakage rate and increases the retained revenue. By this study undertaken in Manas National Park of North East India, the authors found that there is more than 55 percent of the tourism revenue leaked from the destination. The tourism business owned by non-local actors has more leakage than that of tourism business owned by local community. The study has identified some potential areas of the tourism business where the local community can be involved and can be benefited. The paper concludes providing some suggestions.