Geography of Tourism and Disaster Management: A Spatio-temporal Study on Amarnath Pilgrimage of Kashmir Valley

Abstract

The site of this pilgrimage activity i.e. Amarnath cave has been a place of Religious tourism or faith tourism since times immemorial and has been one of the most popularly and revered annual yatra among Hindus from all over the India, trekking the Himalayas most hostile and ecologically fragile routes to reach the cave situated at an altitude of 12,756 feet above sea level. This type of pilgrimage tourism has all along remained economically significant for different stakeholders linked with tourism sector. But there is another side of the coin, the inflow of yatries has alarmingly increased thereby badly affected the pristine and fragile environment and destroyed the ecology of Pahalgam- world renowned tourist site.

In this backdrop, the present study aims to analyse the impacts of Amarnath Yatra on ecology of Pahalgam and geo-environmental issues & concerns thereof. The study is mainly based on secondary data sources (last three decades)obtained from offices of different organisations, different reports, journal articles etc. The study concluded that there is need for better management of Amaranath yatra to improve the pilgrimage tourism without disturbing pristine environment of tourist site of Pahalgam.The authors also suggested several recommendations for making pilgrimage tourism more sustainable,and further preventing it to emerge as a ‘dormant environmental disaster in making’. This study could serve as a significant research and environment management document for promoting sustainable tourism development in the region.