Policy Briefs & Reports

Leaping over Potholes? The Road Ahead for Tourism in India’s Borderlands

Nimmi Kurian

Centre for Policy Research

March 12, 2018

India has been underscoring the transformative potential of cross-border partnerships in tourism for the Northeast. But whatever the glossy brochures may proclaim, initiatives taken in the name of the Northeast seldom ask the question to what extent the border region will benefit from these. The paper argues that the fixation with the economic potential of tourism has meant that this growth has often sidestepped the lives of borderland communities, bringing few economic opportunities to the region. Designed as an alternative model of borderlands tourism, it has the potential to bring tourism-generated revenues directly to the rural communities with the potential to diversify and restructure mountain economies.