The Economics of Ecotourism – A Case Study of the Dangs District of Gujarat in India

Ecotourism is defined as responsible travel to natural areas that conserve the environment and sustain the well-being of local people. The basic premise of this exercise is that expanding tourism can generate pressures for demographic growth, thus stimulating migration to fill jobs linked directly or indirectly to tourism. This may create a tourism– income–population growth spiral at nature–tourist destinations. With this growth, there is a challenge of conservation of nature at tourist places. This trade-off is explained with reference to the Dangs district of Gujarat in this paper. The impacts of economics research in ecotourism are few, and this paper makes an attempt to study this aspect with special reference to the Dangs, a tribal district located in Southern Gujarat, which is an agro-processing and tourism hub. Rich wildlife, gardens, sunrise points and echo points are some of the main tourism attractions of the Dangs district. This paper shows the interaction between tourism and local economy through income and demographic impacts. Empirical analysis using survey data from tourists, businesses and households of Dangs bring out the various factors affecting ecotourism. The Dangs district offers a wide scope for tourism development, although it may include only tourists from the Gujarat state and other parts of India. International tourists are very few in this region. This study reveals that there are good scopes for ecotourism in this region.