Community led Tourism is emerging as a very popular word in tourism sector especially for those tourists who intend to travel to pristine landscapes, creating low carbon footprints and are eager for experience based travel options. It aims to deliver sustainable economic development by building the capacity of local communities to realize the potential value of their natural and cultural heritage to create tourism enterprise opportunities through an institutional model.
NEWS supported with friends oriented towards this model showed a new direction in ecotourism for the first time in Sundarbans – the community owned home stays. The spirited women of Birinchibari village, Nafarganj Gram Panchayt in Basanti block of Sundarbans hosted their first guest from Belgium in Home Stay accommodation and managed their entire culinary in their own style. The tourists, from 7th of March to 10th of March 2016, stayed for 3 nights and 4 days in the village ambiance, spending one day in the National Park area.