The National Tourism Policy 2002 of the Government of India emphasises that `Sustainability should serve as a guiding star for the new Policy.' It goes on to state that `greater emphasis should be laid on ecotourism whose parameters should be broader than nature tourism alone'.

Southern Initiatives is implementing a Sustainable Tourism and Livelihoods project that among other things aims to discover the level of awareness about ecotourism among holiday-makers, tourists, travel agencies and other people who take a keen interested in travel related activities. On the basis of a baseline survey we plan to develop a sustainable tourism training and awareness package for tourists and travel organizers alike that will deepen the understanding about the fragile relation between tourism, environment and livelihoods and help communities, businesses and travelers. This will also help to develop an advocacy agenda on sustainable tourism.

Prof Nabinananda Sen of the Department of Business Management, University of Calcutta is the Chief Advisor for this Sustainable Tourism and Livelihoods project. Rajat Chaudhuri is the project Director and it is being implemented by a team comprising Jayanta Sarkar, Krishnendu Maji and a number of surveyors.

The survey questionnaire (Microsoft Word document) can be downloaded from here. The questionnaire is meant for travel companies. It will take less than 20 minutes of your time to complete. Please download and complete it and email it back to us at info@southerninitiatives.org