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RESOURCE CENTER

LATEST PAPERS

Tourism in India - Role in Conflict and Peace 
June 12, 2009

Tourism throughout the world is promoted as a means to achieving development, and India is no exception. But the question is development for whom? Who are the winners and the losers? And at what cost? The Indian government touts tourism as a tool for poverty alleviation, sustainable development, and social stability. In reality, tourism rarely alleviates socio-economic inequalities and injustices. When combining already sensitive ‘conflict’ zones with tourism development, it is likely that more conflicts will surface. As tourism becomes increasingly globalized, many governments have put investor needs first while diluting, repealing, and changing policies and regulations related to environmental protection, social and democratic goals, and protection of the fundamental human rights. Using the specific cases of Arossim, Lavasa, Kevadia, Kullu and Kanha, this paper explores the relationship between tourism, peace, and conflict in India.

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Scott Free - Protecting Children against Sexual Exploitation in Tourism 
March 15, 2009

How many more of our children will we watch being destroyed for the pleasure and entertainment of adults, who go scot-free? Child exploitation in tourism is an organised and serious crime and it is growing. It demands committed and concerted action. Research, studies, investigations and police cases unearths that child sexual exploitation is a rampant crime in India and tourism is guilty. This paper reports on the growing concerns, the myths around child sexual exploitation, history of abuse and impunity, pinpoints destinations of abuse and the weak laws that allow child sexual exploitation to continue. Given this rather bleak landscape of pervasive and widespread abuse linked to tourism, the paper converges on the basic and minimum steps that different bodies must take with the greatest priority if there is to be hope for India's children.

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Tourism, Trade and Globalisation - Impacts on Biodiversity - A One Act Play 
February 17, 2009

An overview of tourism, trade and globalisation and its impacts on biodiversity is presented in four parts. The first part interrogates the assumptions, myths and realities of globalisation. The second explores the trends in conservation ideology and its implications. The third examines how tourism - which is emblematic of globalisation - plays its part in this drama - the implication of its overt and covert agendas on biodiversity and people's rights. The final part raises some of the dilemmas, questions and challenges for conservation researchers, policy makers, global institutions, civil society and the industry.

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EQUATIONS' comments and additions to the Draft Tourism Policy for Andaman&Nicobar Islands 
January 20, 2009

It is bad economic policy to rely too much on tourism! Many stakeholders and sections of the Andaman & Nicobar administration hope that tourism will become the pillar of the islands’ economy. Firstly, a sound economic analysis of the current and likely economic impact of tourism is necessary. Secondly, taking cognisance of tourism’s vulnerability to internal and external factors and the ecological and geological vulnerability of the islands, such dependence is inadvisable. This paper contains segment-by-segment comments and recommended additions to the Draft Tourism Policy for Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

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Tourism and Labour - Opening Vistas and Emerging Challenges 
December 15, 2008

According to the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Global Report 2006, it affects the lives of 218 million children. India has the distinction of the largest number of working children in the world today. Indian official statistics speak about almost 13 million children, but unofficial estimates vary between 60 and 100 million children. In India, as in the world over, tourism is one more realm that pulls in a significant number of children as child labour. This paper links tourism to child labour, informs on the legislative and policy back-up to eliminate child labour and the illusive implementation of the ban on child labour in the hospitality sector.

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LATEST PUBLICATIONS

The Challenge and Prospects of Tourism in Goa Today 
November 30, 2009

In July 2007, Centre for Responsible Tourism (CRT) took birth when Caritas-Goa and the Council for Social Justice and Peace (CSJP) convened a group of over forty concerned Goans under the Archdiocese of Goa to examine how the church must respond to the fallouts of tourism, reverse the impacts, bring it a human face and enable the benefits of tourism to reach local communities. CRT affirmed the need to study tourism planning and management and how it be effectively brought under community stewardship and management. The initial issues in tourism in Goa that CRT chose to address were: child sex tourism, exploitation of women, cultural conflicts, water abuse, foreign office travel advisories, displacement of people, environmental damage and the empowerment of sub-sectors in tourism. This publication provides an overview, critique and appraisal of the work done by CRT till February 2009. It has also compiled the salient activities and statements made during this period and aims to inspire people to look at steps to humanise tourism and make it just and sustainable.

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Claiming the Right to Say No 
November 30, 2009

In 2008, the Philosophy Department of Rachol Seminary, Goa, organized a three-day seminar on ‘impact assessment of tourism’ for their second-year students. To understand tourism impacts better, some of the seminarians undertook a field research. At that time, Israeli tourists were a prominent foreign tourist group in Goa and there were growing tensions between Israeli tourists and local people. The Rachol seminarians were keen to study these tensions, activities and behaviour of Israeli tourists and their social, economic, environmental and cultural impacts. Another aim was to enable the students to make links between touristic happenings and their theological studies. The methodology adopted for the study was one of seeing, observing, discussions (Israeli tourists, local population, traders, government officials) and photo documentation. This publication of the  preliminary study conducted by the seminarians retains the style of personal observations, personal narrative, unaltered repetitions, much of the writing unedited without insistence on footnotes and references. The study was as much as an immersion experience as it was a research study. This work, the first of its kind to be undertaken by a group of seminarians, has been supported by Caritas-Goa, Centre for Responsible Tourism, Council for Social Justice and Peace, EQUATIONS and Rachol Seminary. At the time of publishing this study, other tourist groups defined by nationality, are making also headlines due to conflict and tension between expectations and needs of tourists vis-à-vis local communities.

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Nature, Markets, Tourism - Exploring Tourism's claims to Conservation in India 
July 15, 2009

This compilation of briefing papers is produced as part of the Life as Commerce Project in partnership with the Global Forest Coalition. The aim of this project is to address the environmental and social impacts of market-based conservation schemes. The primary objective is to raise awareness on the impacts of such schemes and to build and strengthen capacity of local communities, social movements and women's groups to address their impacts. EQUATIONS analysed the prevalence and impacts of ecotourism in the 4 Indian states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

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Making a Difference - Dossier on Community Engagement on Nature Based Tourism in India 
May 15, 2009

In 2008 through a collaborative project coordinated by African Safari Lodge (ASL) Foundation looking at community based efforts in nature based tourism, EQUATIONS got the opportunity to study three very interesting initiatives in India. While each have their unique contexts and histories and are on different stages of tourism development, they also have common features. These tourism initiatives are located in some of the most scenic and alluring places – Himalayan Homestays in Ladakh, Mountain Shepherd Initiative in Uttarakhand and Manas Maozigendri Jungle Camp in Assam.

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Coastal Regulation in India - Why do we need a new Notification? 
April 15, 2009

This publication is divided into four parts: the first part analyses the CRZ Notification 1991 and issues of its implementation. It further looks at violations of the CRZ Notification 1991 by tourism. The second part is an evaluation of the Swaminathan Committee recommendations. The third section is a critique of the draft CMZ Notification 2008. Finally, it has been suggested that the current CRZ Notification needs to be strengthned and rigorously implemented, rather than replace it with a feeble and ambigous CMZ Notification in the section on 'The Way Forward'.

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LATEST PRESENTATIONS

Situation in India on Child Abuse in Tourism - UNWTO Task Force on the Protection of Children 
March 13, 2009

EQUATIONS was invited to present at the United Nations World Tourism Organisation’s 24th Task Force Meeting on the Protection of Children, at the ITB Berlin on 15th March 2009. It was the first time since the task force was formed that a presentation was made on the situation in India, and therefore the moment was historic in some ways. The presentation drove home the point that exploitation of children was mostly unacknowledged by the industry and policy makers. That combined with extremely weak protection mechanisms resulted in high degrees of vulnerability for children who fell easy prey to perverted tourists – both domestic and international.

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Tourism Trade and Biodiversity 
February 19, 2009

This presentation was on the occasion of Bombay Natural History Society’s 125th year. EQUATIONS was invited to organise a workshop at their International Conference “Conserving Biodiversity in a Globalising India” 17-19 February 2009 in Bangalore.   The presentation served as the keynote address to the workshop and is in three parts: Interrogating the assumptions, myths and realities of globalisation, Exploring the trends in conservation ideology and its implications, Examining how tourism plays its part in this drama – its overt and covert agendas and their implications on biodiversity and people’s rights.

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Critical Legal Issues for Protection of Children 
December 09, 2008

This presentation done by EQUATIONS in a meeting organised by the Human Rights Law Network in Kerala (December 2008) focus on the lacunae and loopholes in the legal system on the protection of children, particularly from sexual abuse in tourism. The case of Jakob Spalti a Swiss national that EQUATIONS investigated is used to explain how weak the legal system and protection mechanisms are. EQUATIONS’ efforts at influencing a Children Code Bill to cover such lacunae are also delineated.

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Male Child Abuse in Pilgrim Sites in India Part 1~2 
September 06, 2008

This presentation (in two parts) is about the research study that EQUATIONS conducted in 2008-09 with the support of ECPAT International on male child abuse in well known pilgrim sites in India- Puri in Orissa, Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh and Guruvayoor in Kerala. It describes the need for the study, its methodology and findings and calls for urgent action, legal and protection mechanisms by various stakeholders to ensure that children are not exploited.

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Tourism and the Sexual Exploitation of Children 
February 05, 2008

This presentation offers a broad overview of the issues around child sexual abuse in the context of tourism – the most shameful face of tourism. It explains how such abuse and exploitation result in serious lifelong physical and emotional trauma for the child apart from being a gross human rights violation. Pointing to the weak laws and protection mechanisms, it also talks about why this issue has not got the attention and determined action it deserves.

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LATEST EQUATIONS IN THE MEDIA

Centre’s code push to wipe off child sex tourism stain 
February 03, 2010

What has made the government and the tourism industry sit up and take note of a trend in which foreign tourists visit tourism hubs like Goa, Kerala as well as pilgrimage-rich stateslike Tamil Nadu and Orissa to seek more than the sun and the culture.

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MoT finalises code of conduct for Safe and Honourable Tourism 
February 03, 2010

The Ministry of Tourism (MoT) has finalised a code of conduct for ‘Safe and Honourable Tourism’ to be adopted by major stakeholders like hotels, tour operators, cab drivers and other hospitality-linked services. The code is likely to be unveiled on March 8, 2010 to commemorate International Women's Day.

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In tourism, Goa church sees great new tool 
December 15, 2009

The Roman Catholic church in Goa wants tourists in the state to spare the proverbial beach and booze and hit the Bible instead.

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Tourism can promote good human relations 
December 06, 2009

While tourism can contribute positively to the development of a country and to the prosperity of its people, it can also be wrongly exploited to turn it against the genuine interests of the human person, said the archbishop of Goa, Rev Filipe Neri Ferrao on Saturday.

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Tourism is a powerful tool 
December 06, 2009

Describing sustainable tourism as a “tool of development and prosperity”, Archbishop of Goa-Daman and Diu Filipe Neri Ferrão simultaneously cautioned that if the tool was wrongly used, it could devastate and exploit human beings, cause loss of traditional occupation, social values and culture and degrade the environment.

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LATEST GALLERY

Habitations close to sea, Mayabunder, Middle Andamans

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Andamans: Coastal Area Assessment

Total Pictures in gallery: 18