Sustainable tourism development through community based waste management in backwater destinations of kerala

Abstract

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, (2002) solid waste newlinemanagement is a great challenge in many tourist destinations because improperly managed solid waste can threaten the environment as well as the life of the local community. Sewage waste and plastic material from tourism houseboats are increasing the pollution in the backwaters of south Kerala. These days it is not completely proper for touristic activities because of their physical and morphological attributes. This can lead to unsustainable negative impact on the backwater (Iskander and El 2014).Therefore this study was seeking to understand the influence of community based waste management towards the sustainable tourism development in the backwaters of south Kerala. The research adopted a descriptive research design. The study consists of three newlinecategories of stakeholders. Public sector, Private sector, and Local community. Public Sector stakeholders include Hotel Officials, Resorts officials and houseboat officials. Private sector stakeholder includes the government representative of concerned backwater destination. Descriptive statistics, ANOVA, Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), SEM Modelling are the various statistical techniques used in this study. Cross-case analysis was used to analyse newlinethe qualitative aspects of the research study. This study also develops and test a community based waste management model for newlinesustainable tourism development and considered the influence of factors on community support, community involvement, perceived benefits and perceived cost. The structural model indicates that increasing perceived benefits and decreasing perceived cost from backwater tourism would help to enhance community involvement and support for newlinesustainable tourism development in the backwaters of south Kerala.