About the Book

Crafts are the one of the earliest expressions of human creativity. People have been using crafts for making their daily lives comfortable by producing crafts for utilitarian purposes, and to express their creativity by carving certain exotic and aesthetic materials. In both the cases the artisans have to work with their bare hands with minimal use of machines. The life in villages, specially those of the women folk, is greatly influenced by the craft works. This is more prominent in the third world countries where rapid urbanization and capital orientation have resulted in marginalisation of the rural citizens.

This book deals with the rich culture of crafts of Assam and discusses the global experiences of throwing the crafts making regions open to the tourists and tourism, who are often regarded as the high flying patrons of such exotic products. It focuses on the traditional hubs of the crafts with two important maps on general craft and textile crafts respectively. As a pathfinder in the field, the book will be useful to those who visit North-east India for craft tourism purposes, the researches and the policy makers for the development of the region.

About Author

Dr Mrinmoy K Sarma is Reader in Business Administration at Tezpur University, Assam with an industrial-cum-teaching experience of more than 15 years. He serves as guest faculty in Asian institute of Technology, Bangkok. He holds considerable knowledge on the tourism scenario of the North East India and represented North East Council in TAAI conference in 2004.
He has contributed to the academics in the form of several research publications in International and National peer reviewed journals and completed assignments as Resource Persons in reputed international and national conferences/ workshops. His interest in tourism management has opened a wide vista on cultural dimensions of economics of tourism in developing countries. He has guided several M. Phil. and doctoral students also.

Contents

Acknowledgements
List of Maps and Photographic Plates
Introduction

1 Tourism and Attractions in Assam
2 Craft and Tourism
3 Major Tribes of Assam
4 Objectives and Methodology
5 Handicrafts and Assam
6 Huge Potential (Conclusion)

Bibliography
Index

Additional Info.