A review of the project commissioned by UNDP in 2008 set EQUATIONS on a journey of exploring the issues and learnings derived from these pilot projects.This dossier is conceptualised as accompanying the film in order to mirror the experiences of policymakers, implementers and community members. It is hoped that these reflections and insights will help those engaging in or simply interested in rural tourism to understand its components and complexities.The dossier is structured into several sections. We begin in Section 1 with an overview of the dimensions of rural tourism. This article by EQUATIONS captures the lessons from the Review of the Endogenous Tourism Project (ETP). We interviewed policy makers from the Ministry of Tourism and officials from UNDP – both agencies that had a strong role in conceptualising the nature and goals of these projects. Their reflections are in Section 2. The ETP had the benefit of advisors for institution building as well as architects who worked to incorporate the skills, involvement, and knowledge of local communities and artisans in the use of vernacular forms as an integral part of the project. The hopes, successes, and failures of this attempt, are the material for Section 3.Sections 4 and 5 bring together accounts from the sites – both ETP sites as well as other community based tourism experiments in other parts of the country.Finally, a section on frameworks and tools which we hope will be of value to policy makers, implementers, and researchers alike in the quest for sustainable, sensitive and respectful forms of rural tourism.
This dossier is conceptualised as accompanying the film in order to mirror the experiences of policymakers, implementers and community members. It is hoped that these reflections and insights will help those engaging in or simply interested in rural tourism to understand its components and complexities.