A case study of tourism policies around Satpura Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh

This is a case study of tourism policies made around the Satpura Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, India. The purpose of this study is to analyse the state tourism policies in Madhya Pradesh. The study is divided in two parts, the first part analyses the state tourism policies using Foucault’s governmentality theory. The governmentality theory is used to expose the ideas in the policies with consideration to neoliberalism and the local communities. The first part also examine the ideas of inclusion of the local communities in tourism. The second part are interviews with officials and semi-officials that are implementing the policies. The local communities are the focus in this study since tourism is marketed as a solution to economic growth and employment. Therefore, one of the aspects is if the local communities are a resource in the development of tourism, and if there is any obstacles for the local communities to participate in the tourism industry. The material used is state tourism policies from 2005 and 2016. Interviews were conducted in Pachmarhi, Madhai, Soghagpur, Pipariya and Bhopal. The conclusion is that the state tourism policy from 2016 is clearly neo-liberal that the market and the government is clearly in concurrence. When it comes to the local communities the main problem for participation is that most of the local communities lack of skills, however the type of tourism were the local communities could be beneficiaries is not the tourism that the state government is developing.