• Sushma Maligi

A destination which offers an ideal mixture of natural, cultural and spiritual offerings urges a distinctive management approach. The variance between the perceived usage of a resource by the tourist and the intended use by the locals could heavily impact the sustenance of the pristine offerings. Hence it is imperative to understand how the hosts’ perception and attitude towards the tourists, vis-à-vis how the hosts intend to offer the destination to the guests. The study is centered in the coastal town of Gokarna, Karnataka, India. The qualitative study adopting Interactional Narrative Analysis, coupled with participant observation of 32 informed locals at the destination demonstrates host community’s concerns, perceptions and aspiration towards the visitors and the destination. The study evidently restates the core of Indian hospitality – ‘Athithi-Devo-Bhava’ (The Guest is God) while retaining spiritual, socio-cultural and natural sustainability of the place sans being urbanised. It also escalates the need to understand the perceived consumption and the actual consumption of the resources by the locals and the tourists to allocate resources and to develop the destination in symphony. The study is one of its kinds in the Indian context projecting hosts’ attitudes at a destination which is religiously significant and tourism has been introduced at a later stage. It extrapolates case of pro-tourism attitude by the hosts indicating conviviality at a destination which sometimes witnesses over-tourism.

Gokarna, Host Perception, Host-Guest Relationship, Resident Attitude, Over-Tourism

"THE HOST- GUEST RELATIONSHIP: A NARRATIVE ON THE RESIDENTS’ PERCEPTION AT GOKARNA, KARNATAKA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no.515-529, May-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905E75.pdf

"THE HOST- GUEST RELATIONSHIP: A NARRATIVE ON THE RESIDENTS’ PERCEPTION AT GOKARNA, KARNATAKA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no. pp515-529, May-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905E75.pdf