VULNERABILITIES OF ‘RESILIENT TOURISM’ AND EMERGING TRAJECTORIES: AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The business of tourism is woven around creating longing consumer experiences through a variously connected chain of divergent spatially fixed tangible and intangible assets. Relentless pursuits of the visitors for novelty and uniqueness drive the business forward with great momentum and enhance its resilience. However, the natural and anthropogenic stressor events push the vulnerabilities of tourism and destinations, often making it very fragile and struggling to withstand the effects of the onslaughts. This paper has been scoped to map the vulnerabilities of tourism in Indian context and to elucidate the perspectives for a resilient tourism. The results suggests that domestic and outbound tourism sectors in India have been seen largely resilient in the 21st Century while FTA’s did face setbacks during the global level disasters. Building resilience is a multi-faceted praxis and its effectiveness demands involvement and integration of key stakeholders at all levels- destination, industry and establishment.