SMEs and Sustainable Tourism - The Case of an Indian Himalayan Destination

This paper examines the impacts of unplanned growth of tourismSMEs on civic infrastructure and the environment in Manali - a major touristdestination of Himachal Pradesh. Using an indicator’s framework, the impacts oftourism on the economic, social, and environmental aspects are studied, and it isevident that SMEs working in isolation are damaging the environment at thedestination. While the local community is paying the cost of tourism developmentin the form of degradation of environmental resources, commercializationof landscape, and congestion, the majority of the economic benefits are flowingto the expatriate, making tourism at the destination unsustainable. A CommunityBenefit Tourism Initiative (CBTI) model is proposed to achieve sustainabletourism development at the destination through public-private partnership.