An empirical note on tourists perception on energy consciousness and use of renewable energy in Sikkim homestays

Abstract

Homestays have been popularized in Sikkim to provide meaningful experiences to the tourists even as ecological costs are kept at minimum. This can be best served by imbibing energy conservation beliefs and use of renewable energy in the local homestay. The objective of the study is to measure energy consciousness of the tourists and determine if significant differences exist across demographic variables in this respect. Research design is primarily exploratory, though inferential statistics has been used to arrive at important conclusions. The data has been collected from 400 tourists primarily to measure their energy consciousness. Study also draws upon the on ground observation of Homestays for the energy-efficient technologies and explores the beliefs of homestay managers in this respect. Age and gender appears to make no or little influence on energy consciousness but education emerges as a strong determinant with relatively educated tourists having distinctly higher energy consciousness than those having lower educational credentials. Very few homestays have invested in renewable energy so far with solar energy based products being the first preference. Green taxation, appropriate training and linking energy consciousness with homestay ratings could be included in state policy to encourage homestay managers to invest in green technologies.