Planning for sustainable tourism development in Bhutan.

This chapter investigates the ways in which tourism planning and policies in Bhutan promote, reinforce and constrain sustainability. The scope of this work covers food and beverage purchasing decisions, human resources, transportation and souvenir sales in the tourism and hospitality industry in Bhutan. To achieve these research objectives, 19 in-depth interviews were conducted with hotel general managers in the main tourism areas of Thimphu and Paro. The findings reveal that, while the controlled nature of tourism in Bhutan certainly protects its residents from the negative excesses of global tourism, numerous policies also impede tourism and hospitality from spreading their benefits more widely. Policy makers in Bhutan would rather adhere to the precautionary principle than allow detrimental practices or risk irreversible impact on Bhutanese culture.

Tourism policy planning in Bangladesh: perspective and propositions.

This chapter critically discusses tourism policy planning from a comprehensive viewpoint in the Bangladesh context by presenting research having a particular focus on tourism policy planning, instruments, organizational involvement and implementation. Incorporating the respondent views, this research also generates some specific suggestions for tourism policy planning in Bangladesh.

Tourism development and its impact on economic growth in Pakistan.

This chapter discusses in the first instance the development of tourism in Pakistan, delving into the government's support of it and its potential as well as the challenges of the industry. The chapter subsequently investigates the impact of tourism development on economic growth in Pakistan over the period 1980 to 2018 using a dynamic time-series analysis, namely a vector autoregressive framework, which allows for the possibility of endogeneity and causality issues. The results proved the existence of the tourism-led growth hypothesis and that tourism development has contributed to economic growth in the long run; perhaps not as much as it could have given the potential of this sector. A bidirectional causality is also reported between tourism development and economic growth, confirming the self-reinforcing nature of the tourism-growth nexus.

Planning agritourism development in Sri Lanka: farmers' incentives and barriers.

This chapter aims to understand farmers' perceptions of agritourism in emerging economies of South Asia, using Sri Lanka as a focus case. In achieving the aim, the chapter contributes to understanding agritourism within emerging economies in three ways. First, it proposes to identify farmers' propensity for agritourism as an option. Second, it identifies the most prominent factors motivating farmers to engage in agritourism. Finally, it highlights priority agritourism themes for planning and development officials in an emerging economy context.

Tourism in Afghanistan.

This chapter accounts for the status of tourism development in Afghanistan before the civil war and the situation today, exploring the policies and promotional tools the government has enacted and the options available ahead.

History of tourism planning and development in Nepal: achievements and challenges to sustainable future of tourism.

While presenting the history of tourism development in Nepal with reference to some global initiatives, this chapter discusses the major achievements and challenges in (sustainable) tourism development and offers some recommendations, along with practical implications for policy-making bodies and practitioners.

A case study on impacts of community participation in tourism planning and destination management in Kerala, India.

This case study in Kerala, India explores the positive impacts of community participation on economic, socio-cultural and environmental factors through responsible tourism initiatives in Kumarakom destination. This research evaluates the effectiveness, fundamental elements and conceptual foundation of participatory design in the case study destination. The results of the case study indicate that participatory design can accelerate local community development, innovative initiatives, leadership, employment opportunities, demand for local products and sustainable development in the destination.

The role of international tourism in the Maldives.

This chapter considers the development of tourism in the Maldives and delves into tourism planning and promotion since the 1970s. It also empirically investigates the impact of tourism on economic growth in the Maldives from 1995 to 2016 in both static and dynamic time-series analysis settings. Both the static and dynamic regression results depicted a positive and quite sizeable relationship between tourism and economic growth. It is noteworthy that the analysis could not confirm any relationship in the short run, suggesting that tourism development has its full effect on the economy with time.