Dear Gobar Times Readers,

Are you and your family and friends planning a holiday this summer? Around the world in 80 days? We are all tourists in an increasingly mobile world. Tourism has the potential to increase our understanding of other cultures and places. Writes Erve Chambers in his book Native Tours: The Anthropology of Travel and Tourism, "For decades tourism has been regarded as a trivial activity, not worthy of serious intellectual interest. In the meantime, it has become one of the largest industries in the world, transforming the places in which we live, major towns and cities or the most remote regions of the globe." Never before in the history of the World have so many feet been itching to travel and visit far way places for fun and leisure. In 2002 alone there were over 700 million people scampering all over the globe looking for their ‘little paradise’. Now we can’t say if the tourists are finding whatever they seek, but what we do know is that they are leaving in their wake a deadly trail of rubbish, sewage, noise, disturbed habitats, cultures and societies. Tourism is a double edged sword. Can we ever learn how to manage it properly?

– Pandit Gobar Ganesh
E-mail: panditji@cseindia.org