Site Suitability for Agro-Tourism Development in Nashik District of Maharashtra State, India

Abstract

The main objective of the present research is to identify the potential sites for agro tourism development by using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in Nashik district of Maharashtra State. Nashik district has mythological and historical background and geographical diversity so that there are well known tourist’s places such as historical places, pilgrimage places, grape wineries etc. All these factors lead to the development of the agro-tourists sites in the study area. Pimpalgaon Garudeshwar, Makhalmalabad, Belgaon Dhaga, Zarwad Bk, Vinchurgavali & Dudgaon etc. are major places which are already developed as agro-tourism centers in the study area. The various thematic layers such as slope, DEM, drainage density, average rainfall, LULC, transport density, distribution of tourists places have been applied to analyses the agro-tourists site suitability with the help of AHP analysis. The result of AHP depicted that about 46.15 percent area falls under moderately suitable category 53.19 percent under marginally suitable category for agro-tourism development in Nashik District. Only 0.086 percent of the area is highly suitable for Agro Tourism in the study area. It is located in Nashik tahsil of the study area, especially around Nashik city where most factors are favourable for agro-tourism development. Only 0.58 percent of the area falls under not suitability class which is observed North-western, northern and southern part of the study area which have steep slopes, barren land, less rainfall, less road connectivity, poor soil and very less agricultural development. For improving the status of agro-tourism industry, Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC), Travel Agents Association of Nashik (TAAN), Winery owners and State transport department collectively plan to boost agro tourism industry in highly and moderately suitable areas of the study region.