Re-examining India’s Northeast regions tourism potential through its policy and economic co-operation between India and Thailand

Abstract

 Tourism is one of the fastest growing industry in the world and most countries made attempts to develop tourism for its role in economic development, providing jobs and thereby helping in reducing inequalities in income distribution [1 - 3]. Tourism is listed at the top among the major thrust areas in the proposed economic relationship between India and Thailand, specially the tourism potential of Northeast India, because of its location close to South- East Asia. Northeast India comprises of 8 states as Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. It covers 7.9 percent of the total geographical land area of the country’s total area of 263, 179 in square kilometers. The region has many natural beauties and is very different from the mainland India in terms of culture, food, language, religion, dress and so on. [4]. Despite having so many unique and natural beauties, the Northeast region of India is still a place of least visited [5]. The paper attempts to re-examine the Northeast India’s tourism potential through India’s Look East policy, including the recent Act East Policy and its economic relationship with Thailand.