Participation of Specially Abled People in Tourism: A Case of Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

Tourism industry is presumed to be an industry which helps eradicating poverty and bring equity by generating employment opportunities to the marginalised people at the destinations. This is well emphasised by International Organization such as UNWTO by the dint of planning guidelines suggested frameworks and national equal tourism originations of the states. UNWTO has been a front runner in its efforts to bring in opportunities for all irrespective of their capabilities, gender and races. It augments its assertion by theming this year's World Tourism Day as ‘Tourism for All- promoting universal accessibility’. However, literature on the other hand emphasises on the participation of specially abled people on demand side only, that is ‘tourist side’ and ignores them completely when it comes to their participation on supply side, that is their participation in employment and entrepreneurship. Not only this, supply side perspective finds mention in the definition of accessible tourism proposed by various scholars. This study attempts to find out the extent of participation of specially abled people at the destination. The study reveals that there is mere inclusion of specially abled people in tourism destination; they lack participation opportunities in turns of infrastructure, training facilities and awareness of government schemes available to them. Besides, they find the perception of people about them very demotivating. Tourism can be successful only when they are considered in the supply side also, which is very low presently.