Alternate tourism in increasingly regarded as a key to sustainable development, the rationale being that contrary to mass tourism with its common place negative effects on receiving areas, alternate tourism promotes a balanced growth form more in line with local environmental and socio-cultural concerns.
Alternate tourism, in fact, aims at seeking a transition from impersonal, traditional mass tourism to establishing cordial rapport between visitors and the local hosts.
It is primarily related to the scale of development in terms of product indigenisation, healthy interaction amongst people, local control and an attempt to bring back the lost art of travel. In this context, the criteria for considering suitability of the region may be alterable but Williams (1990) has marked certain factors to be taken note of while fixing the criteria:
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i. Efficiency and Effectiveness of desired product output;
ii. Influences on regional economic growth;
iii. Influence on local residents’ quality of life;
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iv. Use of locally available factors of production; and
v. Harmony with the local, social and cultural structures.
As regards the use of locally available factors, it is worth mentioning that tourism, being a highly competitive business, forces the developers to go for hard technologies which, besides furnishing quality infrastructure, make the rate of development brisk and meet the volume of traffic.
These are, generally, not only costly but are also unfriendly to the environment. The call for alternate tourism coincides with western travellers increasing dissatisfaction towards typical sun based holidays.
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In addition to sun, sea and sand, many vacationers now demand tour packages comprising rare wildlife, primitive tribes or archaeological sites. Others demand activity based holidays where they can hike, bike or go white water rafting.
This interest in alternate tourism has led to emergence of specialist tour firms catering to the demands of a large number of market segments. Alternate tourism in itself is not a type of tourism but is rather a guiding principle involving Eco tourism, Green tourism. Farm tourism. Agri-tourism, Heritage tourism, Cultural tourism, etc.