Prioritization of Eco-Tourism Forms at Sikkim, India

Abstract

Sikkim is the one of the smallest states in India. The state government is promoting eco-tourism as a primary sector of economy. Natural and cultural attributes make Sikkim an ideal destination for Cultural, wildlife, adventure and religious tourism. The objective of the paper is to prioritize these four identified forms of tourism with a view to measure their relative appropriateness in the context of Sikkim. The methodology is based on three tools based on continuous scale, Analytical Hierarchy process (AHP) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) respectively. The data has been collected from 40 respondents (senior civil service officers) The paper concludes that that in terms of appropriateness cultural tourism emerges as best followed by religious, adventure and wildlife tourism in that order. Also the three tools appear valid as they arrive at matching conclusions. Our contribution is that prioritization of forms of tourism has been done for the first time and that too using a comprehensive methodology utilizing AHP, QFD and continuous scale.