Community- Based Ecotourism in Sillery Gaon, West Bengal

Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET) in Sillery Gaon, a picturesque Himalayan village in Kalimpong district of West Bengal, represents a model of sustainable rural tourism that harmonizes environmental conservation with socio-economic development. The paper has focus on community (both resident owners’ of homestay and residents of non homestay) involvement in the management with external agents (who run homestay on lease), well being of staffs and tourist satisfaction and their perspectives in contributing local livelihood diversification, cultural preservation, and conservation of environment. There are 37 households in Sillery Gaon hamlet out of which 31 households have homestays in which 23 homestays leased out to external agents and 6 households do not have homestay but doing business and other activities which directly helps eco-tourism. There were 10 staffs mostly local and only three staffs came from out site and 15 domestic tourists who were found in homestays during survey were also surveyed. It was reported that leasing homestay reduce management responsibilities of the owners, better promotion and marketing and predictable regular income. Though, there is a grave concern about agents prioritize their profits,