The Tourism case study is all about Home Stays in Ayodhya. A new way of livelihood has been on the rise among the people of Ayodhya. The residents are having alternate souce of income through Homestays in Ayodhya. Since the day Lord Ram’s temple was opened to everyone, religious tourism in Uttar Pradesh has been on the rise with its epicenter in Ayodhya and Banaras.
This led to the urgency of tourists’ basic amenities. The sudden rise of a tourism destination can be a downfall if proper amenities are not available. This created a very new way of source of income. HomeStays are mushrooming in the City. Is it a way of creating a livelihood or an unwanted ecosystem of uncontrollable prices of these HomeStays?
Let’s find out with the Case Study with Stays in Ayodhya
Ayodhya is a town in the northern part of India that is referred as a holy place and the place of birth of Rama in Hinduism, as well as a Buddhist historical center. The Babri Masjid, a Mughal-era mosque located on a site sacred to both Hindus and Muslims, was demolished in 1992 amid interreligious conflicts.
Following a 2019 Supreme Court decision permitting Hindus access to the site, a brand-new Ram temple has been opened to the public from January 22, 2024. Ayodhya is located on the Ghaghara River, also known as Sarayu or Sarju in its lower course, just east of Faizabad in South-Central Uttar Pradesh.
Ayodhya, an old town, is recognized as one of Hinduism’s seven sacred towns, associated in the famous Indian epic poem Ramayana with Rama’s birth and the rule of his father, Dasharatha. According to this poem, the town was affluent, strongly defended, and had a sizable population.
Ayodhya, the city of Lord Ram as per Hindu Mythology and sacred Scripture- Ramayana, has been to multiple evolvement.
Ayodhya Infrastructure In the city there are:
Item
Description
Item
Description
Area
2,522 Sq Km
No. of Revenue Disivions
5
No. of Blocks
11
No. of Gram Panchayats
835
No. of Town Area
3
No. of Municipal Corporations
1
Total Population
2471 Thousand
Total No. of Villages
1272
Total Male
1260 Thousand
Total Female
1211 Thousand
Since the day the visitation allowed to visit Ayodhya and have a glimpse of the magnificent Lord Ram’s idol along with other religious attractions like Hanuman Garhi, domestic tourists have kept on rising in the city of Ayodhya which is devoted and termed as religious tourism.
Ayodhya is a small city, and it has a history of conflict between Hindus and Muslims in the construction of Temples and Mosques. The court passed its judgement and finally, Ayodhya famously known as the birthplace of Lord Ram, opened its door with a beautiful temple to the pilgrims.
With this, since the day, the visitations were allowed, domestic tourism in the city on the rise leading to a rise in the need for tourism infrastructures.
Here, the Butler’s Life Cycle Model has been followed with an urgency. However, with increasing visitation, it has been on the slow pace of making many related infrastructure up to meet the demand. Domestic tourists need basic tourist amenities like transport, stay, and food.
However, since residents of the city already have their houses and homes built and living for decades, it’s been hard to construct good hotels to meet the demand, and land prices are sky rocketing with time. This has led to the alternative solution making the people of Ayodhya able to have alternate sources of income and meet the customer’s demand as well.
PROBLEM- Struggle for Hotel and Homestays for Tourists
The concept of Homestay is not new, and many Indian destinations are promoting homestay to help their residents to have alternative sources of income plus it is a sustainable solution for the destination itself.
With the dilemma of missing tourism amenities as per demand in Ayodhya, this concept of homestays gave people a chance to work on a solution where many residents have been changing their homes into homestays, converting some of their rooms into guest rooms. Providing services like AC, separate toilets, travel advisors, transport services, food services and many more depends on their efficiency.
It has been pleasure for tourists to visit the sacred city and before going to the place, mostly tourists have a habit to pre-booking of their stay. It has been noted that the hotels availability on Ayodhya is very limited and has a very high price range. For exam, One premium 3 star hotel would charge from INR 3000 per day that maybe not be affordable for the domestic tourists.
This led to the rise of Homestays, where people/ residents ho already have their houses, started using this opportunity. They emptied one or more than one rooms, added some amenities and converted their houses into HomeStays.
In Online Hotel Booking Sites, one can easily find these HomeStays or Guest Houses charging from INR 1000/- day and monetizing the opportunity. One can say, this as an example of perfect sustainable and alternative solution for the hotel problem in Ayodhya.
However, these uncontrolled rising of Homestays are far from the likeable outcome. We have interviewed many tourists who availed the service and stayed in HomeStays who earlier never stayed in Hose like Hotels. Their experience was not quite likeable.
These Homestays are publishing on online Booking sites of numerous facilities like Air Conditioner, Clean and Spacious Washroom, Toiletries, Food, and many more. However, upon reaching, the tourists often face duped with not availability of the amenities promised or their amenities are not currently functional.
Moreover, there is no way of regulating the sanitation and cleaning, hygiene of the place through Ayodhya administration.
There is no action taken by the Ayodhya Tourism Board to regularize the rates and prices of these HomeStays as well as check the quality of cleanliness and services maintained there.
This results in utter disappointment where basic amenities are lagging and the destination is failing to keep up with the visitations.
SOLUTION
Usually, many domestic tourists in India have been travelling to religious destinations and have stayed in Dharamsalas (Cheaper hotels), and various types of hotels, the notion of home stays in the mainstream has been a funny experience and seems to them as if they have never left home. The instant rise of HomeStays.
With time, the services and owners would enhance more in their hospitality but, Ayodhya might be the recently popularised tourism destination in India that has shown the power of religious tourism and its ability to raise multiple livelihoods by involving residents as its main stakeholders.
Proposed major four solutions that may lift the religious destination more with the support of sustainable surroundings:
Setting up of Homestay Community
Setting of Hotel price and cleanliness Regulatory Body
To give support of Funds and Finance to Homestay Owners
Educating Residents for the benefit of sustainable travel services providers and encouraging women to offer food and home services to generate their income.
RESULT & BENEFITS
The case study shows the very latest rise of a religious destination that came into existence in 2024 January with its magnificent temple as major attraction point. However, with immense popularity and giving a boost to the tourism sector in the destination, the popularity comes with many discrepancies.
We all in the tourism community have to understand that regulating tourists and tourism activities along with not disturbing ecological balance has to be always the key factors, any destination has to constantly work upon.
INSPIRATION
The case study is dedicated to Lord Shree Ram, his stories, teachings, and how his birthplace, Ayodhya can be made more pure sustainably.
