A Stakeholder’s perspective on Holistic Heritage tourism- a special reference to the temple city Bhubaneswar, India.

Abstract

For a holistic heritage tourism development the support of tourism stakeholders is of prime importance and that is essential for the successful execution and long-term sustainable development of a locality. To implement a holistic approach on heritage tourism it is important to identify the key stakeholders for heritage tourism and to synthesise the similarities and dissimilarities between them. In this study, the context is the temple city of Bhubaneswar. The study may be further applied to other heritage tourism destinations. The primary data was collected from various stakeholders through a questionnaire and indepth interviews. The two broad categories of stakeholders that were identified during the study were the local suppliers and the experts of the tourism industry. Taking in the different perspectives of stakeholders may help in solving the issues that the current management is facing at the heritage sites in Bhubaneswar and may result in benefiting the destination as a whole by giving priority to the environmental sustainability, social worthiness, economic feasibility and cultural vivacity, of the place, thus paving a way for a holistic heritage tourism which is sustainable.

Keywords

• Stakeholders
• holistic
• heritage tourism
• Bhubaneswar
• India