Perception of Cuisines and Hypocrisy in Tourism Policy 2019 of Himachal Pradesh, India

This paper examines the perceptions of Himachal Pradesh tourism policy 2019 and the actual implementation facts. This paper comes up with new ideas; methodologies for squaring up the root causes, and propound several strategies for socio-cultural development, economic & environmental sustainability, and tourist inflow. The paper emphasized the promotion of cuisines of cultural acceptance. Objective: The study aims to visualize the cuisines perception of the Himachal Pradesh Tourism Policy 2019 in framing the programs, events, and other activities for the promotion of the cuisines of Himachal Pradesh. Methodology: The study was conducted by analyzing the secondary data retrieved from various sources through qualitative methods. Results: The results of the study revealed that HP Tourism Policy 2019 has been devised to explore tourism activities based on the natural resources of the mountains (topography), snow, environment, flora & fauna, natural beauty, rivers and valleys, art, and culture as major focus areas for tourism development, but least preference has been given to the rural areas, local communities, their cuisines, their native products, and services, while these carry great potential and can contribute a lot to the promotion of tourism in Himachal Pradesh. Conclusion: The Tourism Department of Himachal Pradesh does not approach ground-level realities. Deliberations about tourism are confined to district-level tourism development councils only, and there is no active public participation. The state tourism department needs to look into the various types of distinct locally produced goods and services with the thematic promotion of cuisines/food integrating sustainably with diverse forms of tourism. For the mass tourism inflow in the state, ensure public participation in adopting the bottom-up/ pyramidal planning, decision-making, implementation, reporting, maintenance, monitoring, and evaluation.