Introduction:
Rural tourism in India:
Prospects for rural tourism in India:
Role in Rural development:
Conclusion:
Introduction: Indians believe in holidays: The country has among the largest number of public holidays in the world. Yet the most common reason for getting away is to "visit a native place." Migrant workers return to their family farms at harvest time. Others return to their villages for an annual pilgrimage. The concept of a holiday where you let your hair down and relax has been accepted only in recent years. (2) As India is Considered as “Land of Villages” world wide, it villages which showcase India, Villagers in India manifest a deep loyalty to their village, identifying themselves to strangers as residents of a particular village, harking back to family residence in the village that typically extends into the distant past. A family rooted in a particular village does not easily move to another and even people who have lived in a city for a generation or two refer to their ancestral village as "our village." (1) To understand better about rural tourism is any form of tourism that showcases rural life, art, culture and heritage at rural locations, thereby benefiting the local community economically and socially as well as enabling interaction between the tourists and the locals for a more enriching tourism experience, can be termed as rural tourism." On the other hand "Rural tourism is essentially an activity which takes place in the countryside. It is multifaceted and may entail farm/agricultural tourism, cultural tourism, nature tourism, adventure tourism and ecotourism. As against conventional tourism, rural tourism has certain typical characteristics: It is experience-oriented; the locations are sparsely populated; it is predominantly in natural environments; it meshes with seasonality and local events; and it is based on the preservation of culture, heritage and traditions." (2) Experts