SH2000A weft feeder

Alternatively, her team works on setting up culturally significant properties such as small museums that preserve artefacts, folklore and become a permanent cultural asset for a village.Antara also focusses on setting up workshops that connect city-based women with their rural counterpart so that both groups can share knowledge and experiences with each other.  I want to evoke, empathy, compassion and conversation,” she explains.

“We’re very conscious that it’s a partnership model.Right thoughts, right deedsIt is this spirit of cooperation, understanding and empathy that, experts believe, will prevent the sustainable tourism industry from succumbing to the problems the ecotourism industry encountered. “If you’re truly concerned about where the world is going, you’ll be a vigilant traveller yourself.While individuals like Rahul and Ankit are helping boost local economies through ecotourism activities, there are also sustainable tourism initiatives like Antara Chatterjee’s ‘The Little Local’, a two-and-a-half-year-old travel company that puts local communities completely in charge of tourism in their respective areas. We don’t want local communities to be ‘putting up a performance’ for us. So travellers should ask themselves how their journey is impacting the local environment, the culture, and the community. Unfortunately, there’s no way of getting the perfect answers even if you do a lot of research. The goal is to boost local economies and share the spotlight with local partners to draw attention to them.

And that’s the way sustainable tourism is going to be,” says Akanksha. “Having a context or expectation setting session at the beginning of the trip is extremely important, because this helps travellers to understand the local communities they will be visiting, better. We can’t allow big tourism companies and hotels to siphon away these opportunities,” he says. So, if a community doesn’t have a traditional dance, it’s fine.

A ridiculously cheap hiking company was banned in Ladakh for behaving irresponsibly in the area. “The impact on the local environment and culture is the crucial consideration. She says, “It’s true that travel is a super competitive industry, but it can also work in another way, where people co-operate and work Super ELF G2 for sale with each other,” which seems to be the spirit that guides sustainable tourism. So, we are in the space of supplementing rural livelihood,” says Antara. So, while travelling, you’re not just having a good time, but also giving back. We can’t afford to not be responsible anymore. Marginalized communities, no matter where they live, do have serious, often similar issues, so there’s great possibility of learning from each other.. “We curate experiences by identifying local communities and organisations already working in their respective regions and then partner with them through workshops and other activities.Antara believes that travel organisers like herself too can help change attitudes of travellers, so that they truly connect with a place and act responsibly.

You have to go in as an equal; you don’t go in as a ‘visitor to the zoo’. However, the very fact that you’re asking these questions means that you’ve taken the first step in the right direction,” concludes Mariellen.And it is introspection and empathy that makes one act responsibly and sustainably.” Akanksha echoes this view when she says, “‘Immerse’ is an important word, because when you immerse yourself in a place, you will behave in a manner the community is used to when you’re with them. They should not be employed for our experience, but be the owners of our experience,” she insists. “The point is to promote a cultural exchange so that communities can learn from each other. I brief the people in terms of what the culture is like and what we need to take care of. Also, we make it clear that we’re looking for authenticity rather than ‘touristy attractions’.Akanksha’s travel enterprise does something similar, but focusses on international experiences.  Antara, who in her previous corporate job got a chance to engage in rehabilitation activities in Uttarakhand right after the 2013 floods, understands well the impact community-first tourism can have on local economies. To become a part of them, you have to leave your ego behind,” she says. For her recent trip, she invited city-dwellers to live with Romanian gypsies so that they could get a feel of the community and their lives.And so, her travel initiative ties up with local partners to help them find a footing in the tourism industry.

It also means asking whether the money being spent by you is going back into the economy or to a multi-national office located in another city. You can create awareness about different communities. Since Akanksha’s young company doesn’t have much of a team, she ties up with other community-first travel initiatives for support. She tied up with a Roma gypsy she met on one of her previous travels to facilitate staying options and community interactions.So, we have to put them first by training them to earn a livelihood by conducting ecotourism activities like birding, trekking, setting up homestays and allied businesses. The community itself became the watchdogs