Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Management

Constraints and Prospects of Rural Tourism Development: An Overview of Tourism in Shyamgaon of Titabor of Jorhat, District (Assam)
Jinku Moni Khound

Abstract
Rural tourism focuses on participating in rural lifestyle, culture, art and heritage at rural location, religion, thereby favoring the local communities socially and economically. Most villages of Assam can be a tourist attraction and many villagers are very hospitable. Rural tourism also focuses the agricultural sector of village areas. Now a day a segment of urban population are interested to visit the rural areas and understand their perspective. This segment has been rapidly growing in the past decade and has lead to rural tourism becoming a good prospect. The income from rural tourism can contributed to revival of lost folk art and handicraft of villages. Rural tourism can provide to the poor households holds great prospects for development. Shyamgaon of Titabor of Jorhat district has great diversity of Buddhist religion, their culture and tradition and natural beauties which make this village a very attractive tourist destination. Three villages Balijan Shyamgaon, Betbari Shyamgaon and Na Shyamgaon, 100 odd families and a wonderful tapestry of culture, religion, tradition and history that goes back 700 years. Residents of this village are said to be descendants of those who came to Assam in 13th century from Thailand via the Patkai hill range. The Buddhist temple (Viharas), pagodas with art and sculptures are the another sources to attract tourists. Although this place has a great potentialities it faces different kind of obstacles to developed the rural tourism of this place. In this paper an attempt has made to explore the prospects and constrains of rural tourism development of studied area.

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