Exploring Tourism Potential and Promoting Cave Tourism in Jaintia Hills

Abstract

Tourism industry is an important tool for attracting different types of commercial activities and gives scope for growth of different industries which can play a very crucial role in tourism. It not only attracts only economic activities but also helps to provide more employment generation and revenue generation. Rural tourism as an activity in the tourism department provides a diverse activity of the area. Such is the case in Lumshnong area of Jaintia Hills but the main force of attraction in this village and the villages close by is the existence of natural limestone caves. Most of these caves were mapped and surveyed by a special group of cavers from all around the world especially from Europe and the States. These group of cavers work in close collaboration with an NGO ‘’ Meghalaya Adventure Association” and together they have mapped and surveyed approximately nine hundred caves all around North East. The areas of Jaintia Hills are accumulated with tourist places which remains untapped, especially in East Jaintia Hills. The main source of income for people in East Jaintia Hills is coal mining and in spite of coal mining banned by NGT in 2014, illegal coal mining still takes place. Having identified these untapped tourist places in the area and promoting tourism could help reduce illegal coal mining as this may shift people’s attention towards tourism. Due to lack of infrastructure, tourist footfall to Jaintia Hills is very less in comparison to East Khasi Hills, hence the thesis focusses on identifying the tourism nodes of Jaintia Hills and provide a tourism circuit route including infrastructure which is one of the main source for promoting tourism in any area. The study would also look into the employment generation of the local communities.