Understanding of tourists, experiences and perceptions in the trans-himalayan cold desert of ladakh region of india

The study of tourist’s perception on service quality is a critical strategy for success and survival in today’s competitive environment (Fynes and Voss, 2001). This study assesses the recreational experiences of tourists and aims to discuss the sustainable tourist development of cold desert of Ladakh region. The region as a whole is a climatic desert, which has imposed severe check on the proper growth of economic activity, even agriculture has not flourished fully. Despite of that tourism is opening new vistas fort the region, the total number of the tourists visited in the year 1985 was 18911 which increased to 77800 in the year 2001. The study was conducted with the help of the questionnaires that included different variable measuring the demographic profile, occupational distribution, purpose of visit, and mode of transportation to arrive the destination, level of satisfaction and perception of the tourists towards the environmental condition of the Ladakh. The result shows that about 80% of the tourists visiting the Ladakh are in the economically active age-group and majority of them are from the developed courtiers of the west Europe which is a good sign for the future tourism of the area. The study also focused on the attitude of the host population towards the tourism and it was found 96% of the tourists were of the opinion that host population was supportive for the development of the tourism industry. On basis of this empirical data, some recommendations are made for the sustainable tourism development of the region.