Rural Tourism and Rural Development in India.

This paper focus to probe the of rural tourism in India, how rural tourism can help rural society. It can have both positive and negative impacts on rural as well as urban communities. rural tourism means Any form of tourism that showcases the rural life, art, culture and heritage at rural locations, thereby benefiting the local community economically and social ly as well as enabling interaction between the tourists and the locals for a more enriching tourism experience can be termed as rural tourism. Rural Tourism is essentially an activity which takes place in the countryside. It is multi-faceted and may entail farm/agricultural tourism, cultural tourism, nature tourism, adventure tourism, and eco-tourism. Tourism growth potential can be harnessed as a strategy for Rural Development. The development of a strong platform around the concept of Rural Tourism is definitely useful for a country like India, where almost 74% of the population resides in its 7 million villages. Across the world the trends of industrialization and development have had an urban centric approach. Alongside, the stresses of urban lifestyles have led to a “counter-urbanization” syndrome. This has led to growing interest in the rural areas. Promotion of village tourism as the primary tourism product to spread tourism and its socio-economic benefits to rural and its new geographic regions. Key geographic regions would be identified for development and promotion of Rural Tourism. Keywords: Rural tourism Product, Rural development.

Emergence of Tourism in Sustainable Growth of India.

Tourism has emerged as one of the world‟s largest growing service industries with sizeable economic benefits and immense opportunities. With the emergence of technological advancement, and competitiveness in service-based industries the tourism sector is playing a vital role in contributing to improve gross domestic product (GDP), creation of employment, poverty alleviation and sustainable human development across the world economy. Tourism has the potential to stimulate other economic factors through its forward and backward linkages with a host of sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, transport, hospitality, education, health, banking, etc. Expenditure on tourism induces a chain of transactions requiring supply of goods and services from these related sectors. The consumption demand emanating from tourist expenditure also creates more employment and generates a multiplier effect on the economy.