International Journal of Social Science Research (IJSSR)

Assessment of Local Residents’ Perception of Selected Waterfall Sites in Eastern Chota Nagpur Plateau, India

The waterfalls are one of the geo-heritages, having the power to display a spectacular view through natural forces, attracting tourists to visit those sites. But it has not gained much recognition in terms of tourism development since there is very limited research done considering the views of the local people on such sites. Therefore, the current research focused on the perceptions of local residents on tourism development at selected waterfall sites in the Eastern Chota Nagpur plateau covering the states of Jharkhand and West Bengal. The local residents’ perception on tourism development was tested using 19 variables. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to see the nature of the dataset. Exploratory factor analysis was applied to extract the factors. Then, multiple regression analysis was used to analyse the relationship between extracted factors as predictors and tourism perception as outcome variable. Kruskal Wallis test was applied to test the hypotheses and weighted composite mean score was prepared to rank the selected waterfall sites in Eastern Chota Nagpur plateau. The results indicate that the local residents see the tourism as socio-cultural, economic and environmental aspect which influence the tourism development. But attention should be taken by the authority to create jobs, involvement of local people in decision making, infrastructural development, local culture protection etc., to harness the potential of selected waterfall sites. Keywords: Tourism; Local residents’ perception, Waterfall, Exploratory factor analysis; Eastern Chota Nagpur plateau