2025, Vol. 7, Issue 2, Part C

author(s)
Abhishek Sharma, Vinay Chamoli and Neeraj Aggarwal

abstract
The study explores how economic impact of ecotourism play important role in the sustainable development of local communities by considering twelve ecotourism destinations of Himachal Pradesh. Sustainable development of ecotourism operations at a particular destination requires economical support for locals through ecotourism activities with an emphasis on how local communities differ in their perceptions about the economic growth through ecotourism depending on geographical characteristics. This study is an effort to investigate the perception of local communities of selected sites about the benefits derived from ecotourism. A systematic questionnaire was used to collect information from 308 respondents across the twelve ecotourism destinations of Himachal Pradesh. The perceptions of local community about the economic impact of ecotourism by studying seven economic factors used for the study that causes impact on their development. The Kruskal Wallis H test was employed to identify group variance across the twelve ecotourism destination. The results of the test were statistically significant. The study offers suggestions for the future researches and policy makers to uncover various aspects of ecotourism operations in the state.