Friday 27th January 2012
Scots ideas help shape first Indian eco-tourism project
Deadline News
Tourism experts are using 19th century ideas developed in Scotland to establish the first ecotourism co-operative in rural India.
eTourism expert, Professor Andy Frew from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh has led a collaboration with Dunira Strategy, Scottish destination specialists and experts in co-operative tourism development which is devising a new model of destination management that is as relevant in the Highlands of Scotland as it is in the foothills of the Himalayas.
The team is now celebrating an important milestone in the project with the registration of Bageshwar Ecotourism Co-operative Society (BECS) inIndia.
This co-operative tourism development project, funded by the Scottish Government’s South Asia Development Programme, is supporting communities in ruralIndia to embrace the concept of destination management and marketing.
The aim is to encourage tourists to visit beautiful and unspoilt less established destinations, rather than continually gravitating to India’s better known larger ‘honeypot’ cities and resorts.