An assessment of the impact of tourism development at Varanasi: perspectives of local tourism businesses

Abstract

The present study attempts to assess how far tourism development in a host region results in both positive as well as negative impacts. A series of paired t-tests are carried out between the expectation of the tourism business community on tourism impacts and their experience with the same, which reveal that their expectation is remaining unfulfilled on all eight positive impacts. Results of t-tests pertaining to eight negative impacts further indicate that the experience of the community with two negative impacts is significantly poor compared to their apprehensions. The study findings pertaining to step-wise multiple regression analysis have revealed that four tourism impacts are most influential in shaping the future scenario of tourism at Varanasi. © 2009 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.