Abstract for: Planning and Management of Regional Infrastructure for Tourism Development in Orissa State, India

Infrastructure is highly imperative for tourism development of a tourism resource rich region, which requires plausible planning and management for the development of such infrastructure. In this article, an attempt was made to comprehend the tourism development of a region by considering the influence of three most essential infrastructures, such as, roads, railway and accommodation. For this purpose an integrated System Dynamics model was developed by integrating the effects of road, rail and accommodation infrastructure to the tourism system. It was observed that there would be a multi-fold increase in the tourist flow and revenue generation from tourist receipts along with increase in tourist satisfaction because of enhanced infrastructure provision under perceived simulated scenario. The article also presents a planning and management plan for development of infrastructure in phased manner based on the acceptable simulation results. Thus, a System Dynamics model having the ability to integrate the influences of various infrastructures on the tourism system provides an appropriate tool to predict the various measured indicators reliably and facilitate plausible policy and decision making in perspective planning and management for tourism development. Keywords: Infrastructure; Planning and management, System Dynamics modelling; Tourism development; Tourist satisfaction