Formulation of Flexible Strategy for Pilgrimage Tourism in Himachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

Pilgrimage is one of the oldest and most basic forms of population mobility known to human society, and its political, social, cultural and economic implications have always been, and continue to be, substantial. The size and economic significance of tourism industry have attracted the attention of many countries in actively promoting tourism as a way to stimulate their economies such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Nepal. The world tourism organization has recognized the potential of tourism sector for the purpose of poverty alleviation by increased job creation; consequently, many developing countries are improving their tourism planning and developments approaches. The objective of this research article is to study and examine the key issues, satisfaction level of tourist and determinants of spiritual tourism and problems faced by tourist in Himachal Pradesh. To understand the problems and challenges related to this Pilgrimage tourism in Himachal Pradesh, we categorized these forces into two categories one in continuous and another in change forces. After categorization of factors we will analyze their importance then divide continuous forces in to vital, desirable and burden category and divide change forces into high, medium and low impact forces. After doing VDB and Impact analysis we will map these force into C-C Matrix (Change and continuity Matrix) to form strategic crystal. This strategic crystal help us to draw strategic landscape where we can understand the current situation in Matrix and from here we can draw “to be” strategy to improve the level of spiritual tourism in this district by keeping tourism arrival as our main focus. Therefore in this paper we will be discuss about the determinants, Challenges and problems faced by Tourism Industry, which led to the change in their strategy time to time but there is a need to form an detailed strategy to work on problems along with exact solution. Hence to frame flexible strategy requires emphasis on the continuity as well as on change forces which will give us a picture of Pilgrimage tourism and help us to frame strategy by aligning the change and continuity forces in strategic landscape.