Community Attitude Towards Rural Tourism: A Study in Meghalaya

Rural tourism as an agri-business enterprise provides substantial income to farmers and yield benefits that strengthen culture, antiquity and technological outlook of rural households. For a sustainable and profitable rural tourism venture, integration of the community members in the core tourism plan and their active participation is a necessary pre-requisite. The present study was taken up in Meghalaya state that has heavy tourist traffic and huge potential for rural tourism. Two popular rural tourism centers viz., Mawlynnong (cleanest village of Asia) and Sohliya (strawberry village) were the locale of the study. To study the attitude of community members towards rural tourism, 60 residents (30 from each village) were randomly sampled. Tourism Impact Attitude Scale (TIAS) modified to suit the local context was utilized to measure residents’ attitude. Findings confirmed 66.67 per cent of total respondents held favorable attitude towards rural tourism. However there is a significant difference of attitudes between two tourism centers. Education, land holding, annual income and role in rural tourism are found important determinant factors effecting individuals attitude. Harnessing the favorable attitude of the residents to aware them about the entrepreneurial opportunities of rural tourism so that the covert attitude can be converted into overt benefits is recommendable.