Sustaining Livelihoods and Culture Through Tourism Development

Abstract

The rural area of Sriniketan in West Bengal, India is full of cultural embodiments that can not only serve as a base to develop tourism but also generate sustainable livelihoods. However, the Sriniketan region suffers from chronic poverty and its unique culture is getting depleted thanks to the lack of awareness and interest among locals. With the help of the DFID Sustainable Livelihood Framework (DFID-SLF), this study tries to analyse the contributions that culture-based tourism can make towards generating sustainable livelihoods at Sriniketan. A modified SLF has been prepared with an added element of cultural capital as a contribution to the existing livelihood literature and guiding sheet for future practitioners. Based on the primary (in-depth interviews of fifteen households and five key respondents) and secondary data collected, this paper concludes that tourism development in Sriniketan can not only aid its cultural preservation but also generate an alternate source of livelihood and thereby, making both (culture and livelihoods) sustainable