Socially Relevant Project

EQUATIONS – Equitable Tourism

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 Tourism
“People who travel to and stay in
places outside their usual
environment for not more than one
consecutive year for leisure, business
and other purposes not related to the
exercise of an activity remunerated
from within the place visited“ -
World tourism organisation
Tourism in India
• In 2007 - 903 million international
tourist arrivals
• Growth of 6.6% as compared to
2006.
• International tourist receipts were
$856 billion in 2007.
• Despite the uncertainties in the
global economy, arrivals grew at
around 5% during the first four
months of 2008, almost a similar
growth than the same period in
 Tourism Sector in India
continues to Witness
•  The foreign exchange earnings to India in
tourism sector in rupee terms has touched
36,464 crores by September.

• As per UNWTO World tourism barometer -

foreign exchange earnings per foreign
traveller coming to India has been US $
2112 in the year 2007

• The foreign tourist arrivals to India have

grown at a rate well above 10%.
 About EQUATIONS

• EQUATIONS is a non-profit organisation

established for research, training and the
promotion of holistic tourism. It works
towards transforming the inherently
exploitative nature of mass commercial
tourism
• Its activities include documentation,
publication, research, seminars and the
investigation of alternative tourism
policies and structures.
What EQUATIONS Do?

• At Local level

• At national Level

• At the international level

Challenges faced by
Equations
 Internal Challenges
1. Identifying staff with requisite skill set and the
motivation to work in the organization
2. Attrition- reasons why employees have quit
EQUATIONS in the recent past
ü Activism – Protest, struggle is something people cannot
relate to
ü Not a long term Career (40-50%)
ü Due to personal desires within the same field people
move to other NGO’s or some would want to be
associated with more popular or well known NGO’s (15-
20%)
ü Hard place to be in – employees have been fired on
many instances for under performance (5-10%)
 External Challenges
• Being a small sized organization to be able
effectively and assertively convey the message to
powerful organizations including the State
governments, Tourism departments.
• Receiving funds to support the internship
program for students
SWOT Analysis
Recommendations
1. Private sector participation, which
might includes sponsoring of its
projects.
2. Prior planning so that local community
can be trained and revenue generated
can be equally distributed
3. Educating the tourists so that ill effects
of tourism such as waste accumulation,
child trafficking etc, can be avoided.
4. Certain advertisements can be
published so as to increase the reach of
equation’s publication through giving a
link to various tourism websites and
public awareness can be generated
through road shows.
Selecting certain important tourist
destination and educating the local
community over there, so that ill
effects of tourism can be mitigated
,such as -
a) Changing culture
b) Adapting the foreigner’s
way of living
c) Non utilization of available
resource.

6. Price control mechanism can be

adopted so that foreigner’s interest
can be protected.
Uniqueness about Equations
• Participative decision making is
encouraged, the staff members
are included in deciding on their
take home salaries as well as
they decide for their colleagues.

• One of the few organizations with

highly qualified employees with
high motivation.
Learnings of the Group
 
• To be able to see the negative side of tourism
• Through the window of tourism we were
enlightened about the various other problems
associated with tourism to name a few
– Rehabilitation
– Distribution of equal income
– Maximum employment
– Leakage – economy
– Development
– Child trafficking
– Women abuse & prostitution 
• Through interactive sessions at Equations we
were also made to realise our responsibilities
towards these issues. How we could make a
difference? What our attitude should be?
 Future Plans/ Prospects
• Linking initiatives on monitoring cells, tourism impacts at
community levels, supporting and responding at issues
form the ground particularly through research support,
campaign support and capacity building

• More work with the industry and with the small and medium
enterprises and tourism service providers. To work with the
informal associations and the unorganized sector in tourism

• Focused advocacy and lobbying work at the centre and

focused media advocacy

• Linking issues of legal policy changes and governance

issues into thematic programmes
• Work on awareness building with people/tourists,
popular articles, using creative methods like art
and popular culture as communication tools

• Disseminating our work in forms that are more

useful to the constituencies through briefing
sheets, summaries, translated into local
languages.

• To maintain the strength and size of the

organization

• To start a forum where all people/ organization

working on related/similar issues meet and
exchanges ideas/views
Learnings applicable to managing
business
• Understanding the sources of fund and
efficient utilization of these funds for
the functioning of the organization
• To retain and motivate the staff in a
non-profitable organization (not a highly
paid job)but who work for a cause
• Planning on future challenging activities
for the organization
• To market and advertise the purpose of
the organization, since it is a non-
profitable organization and getting
sources of funds in a very critical issue.
So giving the organization the right
exposure is essential
THANK YOU