Supply Chain Management Perspectives on the Development Gap in the Indian Tourism Industry - with special reference to heritage tourism in Rajasthan

Abstract

According to the UNESCO, the World Heritage and tourism is defined as stakeholders share responsibility for conservation of our common cultural and natural heritage of Outstanding Universal Value and for sustainable development through appropriate tourism management. Whereas, UNECO has its aim to facilitate the management and development of sustainable tourism at World Heritage properties through fostering increased awareness, capacity and balanced participation of all stakeholders in order to protect the properties and their Outstanding Universal Value. (UNESCO, 2019)

Over the years tourism consumption patterns have changed dramatically. Richards (1996) said “Tourism has developed from an elite pursuit to a basic leisure need of the masses, and arguably the world’s biggest source of employment. At the same time, consumption of all forms of culture has expanded, as the democratization of culture and the growth of the middle class have opened up ’high’ culture to a wider audience.  

Therefore, in the developing countries like India tourism has play the vital role as the major sectors of the economy, contributing to a large proportion of the national income and generating huge employment opportunities.

Despite a booming tourism sector, tourism in India is still besieged with a host of problems. To solve this, it has been suggested that the Indian tourism sector can benefit from borrowing ideas and tools from the business sector, in particular, the concept of Supply Chain Management (SCM).

The findings reveal that SCM is only utilized by the big multinationals. For small and medium-sized enterprises they do not have the understanding what SCM is all about let alone using this business tool. Despite much effort by Indian government to develop the tourism sector, the implementation of any policies lacks co-ordination and as such the result is patchy.