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30 © Batta 2016 | SMEs and Sustainable Tourism
shock due to foreign visitors are increasing day reduce it. This process is known as “waste
by day. The Council needs to prepare a disaster auditing” (Nepal, 2008). The principal ways of
management plan for tourists as well as the dealing with the waste are to track, reduce,
local community. This plan needs to coordinate reuse, and recycle the waste.
with the District Administration to chalk out a
contingency plan. Reducing energy consumption among tourism
ventures is another area of significance,
Sustainable Development especially in view of its climate change
implications (WTO, 1993; UN, 2002). Gossling
To achieve economic sustainability through (2002) estimates that tourism related global
maximizing the retention of benefits, the energy consumption is about 14,000 PJ, of
measures that need to be taken are twofold: which the share from the transport sector is 94
coordination among SMEs to promote local percent, accommodation sector is 3.5 percent,
products and imparting skills to locals to occupy and the rest is consumed by the activity sector.
positions in businesses. The Council could Studies have shown (Becken et. al., 2003;
provide a platform to the local businesses to Gossling et al., 2005) that energy efficiency
explore possibilities of doing business among increases with the length of stay. The Council
themselves to prevent imports from outside. needs to develop special information packages
The presence of farmers and representatives for the tourism enterprises and the local
from all trade associations could make things community on ways to reduce energy consump-
happen. Programs to train the local youth in tion. Special workshop sessions and informa-
hospitality related trades need to be started, tion campaigns for the target ventures would
and support from the local hospitality industry help a great deal.
is required to ensure employment.
6. Conclusion
Another component of sustainable development
is reinforcing the social fabric and culture. Apart From the impact scenario projected above,
from being a nature tourism based destination, problems can be summarized per the table
Manali is also known for its rich cultural below (Table 6).
heritage. With the goal of promoting local
culture, the Council could, with the help of the Manali presents a typical scenario of low
local administration and the tourism depart- investment and an enterprise economy arising
ment, organize summer and winter carnivals due to lack of access to credit coupled with the
where local cultural clubs are given the oppor- high cost of finance and low social returns. This
tunity to perform. Enterprises selling local vicious cycle of growth (Figure 5) thrives on
handloom and handicraft items need to be given exploitation of natural and human capital and
priority in allocation of shops in the marketing generates an economy that is characterized by
complexes built by the Council. A cultural low productivity and high natural resource
theatre could provide a year round platform for content and is therefore low on resilience.
the local cultural clubs to perform.
As has been noted above, the documentation
Reducing waste disposal by the enterprises as procedures and requirement for collateral act
well as tourists is a major challenge. It is as a major deterrent for SMEs accessing credit.
therefore essential to promote the concept of High rates of interest coupled with mortgage
reduce, recycle, and reuse through moral suasion charges payable to the government prohibit the
and workshop sessions by the experts. Much service providers from growing, resulting in
waste production is avoidable, and reducing outside purchases by the hotels. Furthermore,
waste production can save businesses a lot of the high cost of credit does not allow hotels to
money. It is therefore worthwhile for tourism increase the size of their business and incur
operators to monitor the amount of waste they marketing costs to overcome the seasonality of
are producing and the kinds of waste they are demand.
producing then review the reasons for its
production and consider how to prevent or
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