Journal of African Development

Nainital, a hill town based on a lake, in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, is a very popular weekend and seasonal tourist destination and is overburdened with the heavy tourist load. A questionnaire with 12 items at five Likert scale was used for structured questionnaires with 300 respondents divided equally between tourists (n = 150) and tourism stakeholders (n = 150). The following statistical procedures were used to analyse the data: Cronbach's alpha, exploratory factor analysis, one-sample and independent-samples t-tests, one-way ANOVA with Tukey post-hoc tests, correlation and multiple regression. Three dimensions were identified (66.6% cumulative variance: Waste, lake and traffic management; Community and cultural welfare; Regulation, awareness and business adoption). The overall scored was significantly higher than the neutral point (M = 3.48, p < .001) and it was proposed that existing practices can effect on environmental and community outcomes, however the weakest part was tourist awareness of green practices (Q10, M = 3.05). Practices were rated lower by tourists than stakeholders (p < .001), perceptions varied by five types of respondents, and the three dimensions accounted for 49.7% of the variance in perceived overall effectiveness, with community and cultural welfare being the best predictor. Implicit suggestions are made for the destination managers, hoteliers and policy makers of Uttarakhand