Indigenous Tourism Development in Tribal Ecology: Conceptualizing a Framework for Sustainable Livelihood

The importance of tourism as an instrument of economic development and employment generation particularly in remote and backward areas has been well appreciated over the world. Some tribes consider tourism one of their significant cultural, social and economic development priorities, while others do not want to increase it in their ecology. In fact indigenous tourism has not been fully harnessed due to the high sensitivity of the subject, lack of scientific data and its overwhelming international and domestic nature. The approaches to tourism development in tribal ecology are as unique as the tribes themselves. Issues on sustainable livelihood promotion have become a key driver of the social, economic and political agendas in India. Since the adoption of National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), the term ‘Sustainable Livelihood’ has become a central theme in tourism development. The need of the hour is to ponder on how sustainability and bio-cultural diversity override development agenda and how a new set of goals might promote sustainable livelihood of indigenous people of India.Community Capacity Building (CCB); Community Owned Enterprises(COEs); Public-Private- Community Partnership(PPCP); Community Institutional Development(CID); Bio-Cultural Sustainability(BCS); Stakeholders Collaboration and Networking(SCN); Improved Livelihood(IL); Community Investment Fund(CIF) and Corporate Social Responsibility have been identified as key indicators of sustainable livelihood framework.