Published Paper Details:

Tourism has become an important factor influencing regional development especially when it comes to geographically and environmentally unique destinations like Leh, Ladakh. The fast development of tourism has created socio-economic benefits including job creation, improvements in infrastructure, support to local entrepreneurship and protection of cultural heritage. Nevertheless, the development of the tourism industry has led to the aggravation of different problems such as environmental pollution, resource depletion, waste management problems, seasonal overpopulation and problems with local infrastructure. The current paper presents a systematic review of literature concerning socio-economic impacts and challenges associated with sustainable tourism in Leh. Literature has been chosen based on keyword searches in the main academic database, with about 120 publications identified in total. Based on their relevance, 90 peer-reviewed publications have been selected to provide a literature review of socio-economic impacts of tourism in Leh. The literature review focuses on such topics as motivation of tourists, choice of destination, tourist services quality, tourist satisfaction, border tourism, and sustainable tourism. Thus, the findings reveal that tourism has had a considerable influence on regional development, providing more job opportunities to local people. However, the sustainability of this industry is connected with certain measures to be undertaken.