Mass tourism, its challenges and sustainability: A study on Santiniketan.

Tourism

In the words of renowned poet Rabindranath Tagore “nil digante oi fuler agun laglo” which means during spring in the blue horizon of Santiniketan Palash flowers are look like flame. Santiniketan is always famous for Rabindranath Tagore, Viswa Bharati University and its great red soil along with its pleasant natural beauty. Santiniketan is always a center of attraction for the entire global villagers. Specially a huge number of people gathered during famous festival "Poush Mela" and "Vasanta Utsav". Santiniketan is one of best weekend destination among the adjacent urbans throughout the year but during these two festivals overtly people arrive in Santiniketan around the world. The main objective of the study is to identify the harsh impact of mass tourism on Santiniketan during these two festivals. Along with this, the study also suggests the identification of current problems and future needs for maintaining the sustainability in Santiniketan's tourism. Through our study we want to draw attention of the local resident participation and cooperation which is necessary to make the tourism at Santiniketan more sustainable. Although because of mass tourism local economy, employment generation are boosting; hotel, travel agency and tour operator are flourishing but at the same time environment is devastating and deteriorating. It is an unfortunate truth that many visitors have little care for the beautiful landscapes of Santiniketan which is regularly devastated by vehicles, garbage and human waste, pollution and plastic waste. Santiniketan is also known for its great cultural value. While in mass tourism the cultural part suffers in various ways like consumption of alcohol, drugs and crime rates often goes up. The present article constitutes a review of the most important objective and tasks of tourism organisation to develop the proper sustainability in Santiniketan.

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