Help Tourism

Dear Traveller,

for more than 02 decades, people who travelled through us not only brought peace and relaxation to themselves, but also gave a better life to the destinations where they travelled. Without your visits and your valuable feedback we wouldn’t have been able to create and sustain all those new initiatives that came up since.

The 2012-2021 Mission has no logo yet. We have sent out a request to our friends and partners in the destinations to visualise their idea of “responsible footprints”. Who but them knows best what responsible travel means for a place. Then its your call to vote for your favorite logo.

Stay updated about the online gallery and the public voting

For the last one decade we have also followed with great attentiveness the warnings about how our travels have added to carbon footprints and climate change. We are aware that our travel does have an impact, especially if we have to use airplanes. But we feel that a great travel experience should not focus on the guilt of travellers. Tourism is a powerful tool for rural development, social upliftment and empowerment of the local people. Not that everything always was at its best, sometimes because of more greed at destinations the sustainability factor has been cut short. Yet we are proud of the many positive examples for the benefits of tourism. Those examples we want to highlight and built upon.

If you did not travel, you wouldn’t have understood this land or brought benefits for the people here. We all from the Help Tourism family want to thank you for this important support. We have thought of dedicating this decade 2011 to 2021 to Swami Vivekananda, the wandering monk, who through his travels understood this land and connected it to the world. He often said that it is because of his travels, he has found the meaning of his life and accordingly dedicated himself for mankind. He has left ‘responsible footprints’.

We at Help Tourism after dedicating the 1^st one decade in understanding the philosophy of travel, dedicated the next decade to several missions to establish that tourism can do only good, if we can create opportunities. This decade we want to make travel more meaningful for you, help you in choosing ‘responsible footprints’. We have finally realised that it is only you, the traveller, who through your travels can make this world a better place to live in and visit.

Dated the First of January, 2012.   Help Tourism Family

The annual missions:

2000, Visit East Himalaya, East & Northeast India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh

The 2000 mission was followed by

2011 was one of the most important years for Help Tourism Family, where we could directly show to the world the social, cultural and environmental betterment brought about by tourism volunteers. This has given us the confidence to partner with you, the traveller, to dedicate a decade to Responsible Travel.

A travel writers meet in the wilderness setting of North Bengal dedicated o the cause of local empowerment and to all who have completed 50 years of travel writing.

Date: 10thDecember, 2011,        Venue: Chamakdangi Forest Village (20 kms From Siliguri), off Sevoke Road

NCT or Noam, Chel and Teesta represents an area, which is the natural and cultural diversity between the hills and the plains in North Bengal, with areas which were important trade transit centres of the historical to recent past. The Haats or weekly markets then played an important role and the routes connecting them were important. Two such Haats which were famous are Matigara and Oodlabari, which were further connected to the legendary Silk route terminating or starting at Kalimpong. The route from Matigara or even the Darjeeling hills went through the Sukna-Sevoke forests, presently Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary and stood at this village of Chamakdangi, west bank of Teesta. From here all travellers had to cross by boat, elephants etc, depending on the water depth and status of travellers. Chamakdangi then was a mixed village of several different communities, was helped to settle here by the King of Jalpaiguri. Crossing to the Eastern bank we then meet an area, which has been formed by the meeting of several rivers to Teesta River, called Gajoldoba, surrounded by the Royal Baikanthapur Forests. These rivers like Leesh, Gheesh, Chel come from the mountains, separating the villages on the high ridges known as Bagrakot, Chuikhim. Yelbong, Barbot, Manabari etc with Oodlabari at the centre.  Hence, as natural corridor these non notified Forest areas connects Neora Valley National Park with Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary.

There are several such biological corridors all over Asia, some of them active and some lost with time and several on the verge of extinction. Responsible Tourism Initiatives have in the recent years helped to maintain such corridors with the help of the local residential communities of the area by giving them meaningful livelihood, bringing them out of isolation and confirming more commitment from the local communities in conservation. There is a trend of supporting such initiatives through new forms of travel programs like voluntourism, CSR programs, participatory tourism etc. This trend is being very heavily reflected in travel guides, travel columns, travel magazines, travel programs in televisions and most media being used for travel promotion. Hence, this travel writers’ meet, where veteran International travel writers like Stefan Loose and local like Gouri Shankar Bhattacharya are expected to attend and share their experiences. This meet in the wilderness setting of North Bengal will certainly help to make travel writing and documentation more rooted to the cause of local empowerment. This meet is being dedicated to all who have completed 50 years of travel writing.

Registration details

Help Tourism’s  2009-2010 annual mission “Tourism for Peace” got unexpected attention. Tourism researchers included Help Tourism’s Sunderbans project and the Gurungs’ Tinchuley homestay in a good practice case study collection. Their paper examines the synergistic linkages among alternative forms of tourism and the establishment of long term peace.

Case Study 2: An Inspiring Example of Wildlife Conservation

… Though the local community in The Sunderbans has been traditionally respectful of the tigers,  there  have  been  confrontations  between  humans  and  the  big  cats  in  recent  times due  to  various  factors.  But  with  the  initiatives  of  some  enterprising  locals  and organisations  like  the  Forest  Department,  The  Sunderbans  Tiger  Project,  the  Wildlife Protection  Society  of  India  (WPSI)  and  Help  Tourism,  tiger  conservation  efforts  were encouraged  among  the  local  community  members  and  The  Sunderbans  has  become  an extraordinary case of wildlife protection in India (Biswas, 2008 ; Hui, 2009).  
The Bali Nature and Wildlife Conservation Society (BNWCS) based in the Bali Island of The Sunderbans is one of the initiatives which have promoted sustainable development with the help of local participation. The Bali Nature and Wildlife Conservation Society is led by Anil Kumar Mistry (principal field officer), a poacher-turned-conservationist and an  enterprising  local  responsible  for  carrying  out  campaigns  like  the  Bagh  Bachao?  or „Save  the  Tiger?  in  motivating  locals  towards  tiger  conservation  (Hui,  2009).  [...]
Promoting The Sunderbans as an ecotourism destination, the Bali Nature and Wildlife Conservation  Society  runs  a  10-cottage  ecotourism  complex  in  association  with  Help Tourism, a group that runs sustainable tourism projects in eastern India. This ecotourism complex is part of a tourism project called The Sunderbans Jungle Camp, a community-driven  initiative  and  it  is  credited  with  providing  jobs,  directly  and  indirectly,  for  a number  of  local  people  (Hui,  2009;  Biswas,  2008).  It  is  also  supported  by  WWF-India (West Bengal State Office), the Department of Forests (Government of West Bengal), and the Association for Conservation and Tourism (ACT) – a non-profit organisation (Biswas,  2008). The complex adjoins a small agricultural settlement, embedded between river and paddy  fields.  The  construction  follows  traditional  patterns  and  uses  local  materials. Several  guided  excursions  and  boat  trips  to  the  forests  and  the  nearby  villages  can  be arranged  by  locals  according  to  the  visitors’  preferences.  Today  the  complex  is  run  by local people almost independently (Gotliffe, 2007; Biswas, 2008 ; Hui, 2009 ; Roy, 2008).
Local social projects, such as an evening school, free medical camps, book and garment banks and scholarships, are supported with revenue from tourism. In the 2007 „Tourism for Tomorrow? Awards in London, organized by the WTTC (World Tourism and Travel Council), The Sunderbans Jungle Camp was one of the award winners in the category of „Investor in People? (Hui, 2009). 
The efforts of the Bali Nature and Wildlife Conservation Society, through projects like The  Sunderbans  Jungle  Camp,  have  led  to  the  fostering  of  peace,  harmony  and  co-existence  between  man  and  wildlife  in  the  Indian  Sunderbans.  The  Sunderbans  Jungle Camp  project  is  an  idyllic  example  of  community-based  tourism  that  protects  the endangered  Bengal  Tigers  while  giving  locals  a  sustainable  alternative  livelihood  (Hui, 2009). According to officials of The Sunderbans Biosphere Reserve , a study conducted by  The  Wildlife  Institute  of  India  for  IUCN  (International  Union  for  Conservation  of Nature and Natural Resources) judged The Sunderbans to be the „best managed park? in the country? (Biswas, 2008).

in: The Journal of Tourism and Peace Research, 1(1), 2010, pp. 27-41, Sudipta Kiran Sarkar and Babu P George, Peace Through Alternative Tourism: Case Studies From Bengal, India.
The full paper is avaiable for download: http://www.icptr.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Peace-through-Alternative-Tourism.pdf

“With Volun-Tourism we envision an enlightened and empowered rural India where local communities are able to create conditions to fulfill their aspiration and earn a respectful livelihood without leaving their villages, overcoming barriers of class, cast, gender, ethnicity and religion.” 

The year 2010 has been very special for Help Tourism as the organization completed its 20 years in Responsible Tourism. It was indeed an eventful journey punctuated by joy and sorrow. We salute all the members of the team and extended family of Help Tourism and our guests and partners who gave us support and sustenance. We take this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to conservation and communities by practicing tourism as the religion of mankind. 

Despite many challenges the organization successfully launched several new initiatives, projects and programmes in 2010. 

The WTD (World Tourism Day) Yatra was a grand success with several very fruitful programmes in Dhaka and Paharpur to connect the heritages of Bangladesh and India. The Indian delegation was lead by internationally famous filmmaker Goutam Ghosh. 

Two Peace Parks were established in 2010: Guru Padmasambhava Peace Park in Ultapani in Manas Biosphere Reserve in Assam and Lalon Fakir Peace Park in Chilapata in North Bengal. 

The annual Nature and Community festival at Chilapata witnessed record attendance of all the local and regional stakeholders. 

The Samsing Jaldhaka Orange Festival  received overwhelming response with more than 5000 participants who presented a spontaneous and spectacular show for two days and mesmerized the audience and guests. 

The ‘Waste-free Destinations’ campaign continued in 2010 with enthusiastic participation of the local grass route NGOs, travel trade, local traders, lodges and home stay operators, Forest department and local administration in Manas Biosphere Reserve in Assam. 

With generous support from the state Forest and Tourism departments, Help Tourism introduced full-fledged nature-based and cultural tours in Tripura. 

We along with our Nagaland team leader Angulie Meyase assisted celebrity birders Bikram Grewal, Sumit Sen, S.Ramakrishnan, Bano Haralu and Government of Nagaland in conducting the first systemic Ornithological survey in Nagaland. 

We also supported the research and photo-documentation projects in Bengal and Northeast India for the publication of the book named Forts and Palaces of India published by Om Books International, written by Amita Baig and designed by Alpana Khare with photographs by Joginder Singh. 

An extensive training programme was organized by us at The Swiss Hotel, Darjeeling for the Project Leaders of nature-based rural tourism initiatives in East and Northeast India. 35 Project Leaders received training on hospitality basics, rural tourism management and operations, community based tourism, adventure tourism, waste management and conservation of natural resources. 

Help Tourism received the prestigious “HSBC-TOFT Wildlife and Tourism Initiative of the Year” award. Our Dihing River Camp was awarded “The Most Innovative Tourism Product” at the 80th TTF (Travel and Tourism Fair) in Kolkata. 

The modern India is emerging as the second largest growing economic power in the world though sadly, despite the strong economic growth, huge domestic capacity and service potential, India still witnesses alarming disparity between the rich and poor and poverty and backwardness in the rural areas where the communities are ready to sprout with even a little encouragement and support. Tourism in general too has still a long way to walk to take a turnaround and recognize Responsible Tourism as a key to reduce the disparity and drive conservation efforts and help communities to establish their ownership on local resources. 

To much to our delight, a new Mantra of Responsible Tourism is increasingly proving its worth as a level maker by poverty alleviation and bringing valuable resources and benefits to the rural communities. Volun-Tourism as it is commonly known is the demonstration of the noble way of sharing and exchanging knowledge and resources between the guests and the hosts and giving maximum back to the people and destination while enjoying an inspirational holiday experience. It opens up the global door through the local window. 

Based on the need of the local communities in the destinations and the various skills possessed by the Volun-Tourists, Help Tourism has introduced well-researched and custom-made Volun-Tourism holidays and projects in several villages in East & Northeast India over the years and has already gained the trust and confidence of the communities. 

Through our projects and tours Volun-Tourists have been able to cut across all geographical, language and cultural barriers and have adopted villages lying adjacent to the Protected areas and Heritage sites – from the mangroves of Sunderbans to the remote mountains in Mishmi hills and Namdapha in Arunachal Pradesh, from the tropical forest of Bengal Dooars and Assam to the high altitude ecosystem in Neora Valley and Sikkim,  by bringing support to various important fields such as education, self-help enterprises, sustainable bio-farming, low cost and pollution free energy, rain water harvesting, medical assistance, small-scale handicraft business, organic food product, waste management, home-hospitality business, wildlife conservation, creation of community buffer forest and biological corridors; documentation of indigenous culture, language and folklores; survey and monitoring of endangered plants and wildlife. 

With Volun-Tourism we envision an enlightened and empowered rural India where local communities are able to create conditions to fulfill their aspiration and earn a respectful livelihood without leaving their villages, overcoming barriers of class, cast, gender, ethnicity and religion. 

May we declare the mission of Help Tourism for 2011:
RURAL ENLIGHTENMENT THROUGH VOLUN-TOURISM! 

We solicit your blessings, support and participation to help us establish benchmarks in Responsible Tourism and influence rest of the globe with our humble mission. 

We wish you all a great, peaceful and prosperous New Year ahead. 

With deep regards, admiration, appreciation and love. 

Help Tourism Family. 

31st December 2010, India.

It is heartening to note that the seeds of Ecotourism movement have started sprouting in Central Dooars after Help Tourism stepped in to develop a demonstration model in Chilapata Wildlife Sanctuary three years ago. Since then several initiatives have been taken by the local communities and the movement is getting stronger and exemplary.

 The fact that the local villagers are taking increasing interest to develop community enterprises in the tourism sector following the guidelines of Ecotourism was evident in a series of workshops held in Rajabhatkhawa and Raimatang recently.

Rajabhatkhawa has a long history and, as a gateway to the majestic Buxa Tiger Reserve, it is already well-known in the tourism circuits of Eastern Dooars. Although tourism started in Buxa landscape quite a few years ago the local communities did not have until recent times any specific direction or model to follow to make it sustainable and equitable. Buxa is a designated Tiger Reserve and a critically important wildlife habitat which supports many wildlife corridors since it is contiguous to Bhutan and Assam. With our tourism projects in East & Northeast India we have shown that community-based Ecotourism can effectively drive conservation and ensure poverty alleviation. We took this campaign and experience to the communities of Eastern Dooars as well through the Chilapata Jungle Camp model and it produced excellent result and received overwhelming response.

 Mr. Ramkumar Lama – a local community leader and social activist took the leadership and stepped up the campaign and motivated the communities to come forward.
From our past experience we have seen that every project site or destination adjoining the protected areas has its own dynamics, ground realities and different scopes based on which the tourism-based and associated livelihoods should be conceived and developed which must benefit the local communities and aid the conservation of the wildlife habitat.

 In order to understand and discuss the local dynamics, scopes and available resources through exchange of ideas and expertise and create the climate for implementation of  Ecotourism projects at the local level, Ramkumar and his organization Yugantar Pariwar organized the workshops on Eco & Tea Tourism in association with Help Tourism as their Resource Partner and active participation of Khetriya Gramin Bank and the local branch of Art of Living Foundation at the Forest lodge in Rajabhatkhawa and at Sahid Ajay Lama Eco Park in  Raimatang beat of Buxa Tiger Reserve on 29th & 30th November and 17th to 19th December 2010 respectively.

All local stakeholders, self-help groups, NGOs, representatives from travel trade-local administration-department of agriculture and forest, local villagers and experts from various relevant fields attended the workshops and had extensive interaction and discussion about the possibility and scope of developing community-based tourism business in the area. Our colleague Ms.Tapashi Bose was present at both the workshops as the Resource Person from Help Tourism and explained the Help Tourism model to the participants through presentation and interactive class.

Ram Kumar Lama gave a very interesting presentation about the enormous potential of community-based tourism in this part of Dooars which can attract Ecotourists from different parts of the country and abroad because of its captivating natural beauty and ethnic and cultural diversity. The area has several protected wildlife parks and foothill forests, tea gardens, hills, snow-fed rivers, heritage and historical sites and tribal settlements. The possibility of developing circuits based on various special interest travels such as heritage tourism, cultural tourism, craft tourism, home stays and tea tourism with interesting activities such as treks, bird watching, butterfly watching, bi-cycle tours, Elephant-back rides, tribal cultural tour, local cuisine tour, study tour, hiking tour etc. was discussed at the workshops. The local villagers expressed keen interest to develop home hospitality business in their villages.

The experts from Khetriya Gramin Bank gave very useful information about the bank loans available for Ecotourism business and interest on loans and repayment modalities. They also explained the benefits of Kisan Credit Cards and how this can help local villagers to be a part of Ecotourism business and earn from Organic food cultivation, farming of medicinal plants etc. and protect the environment.

The importance of preservation and maintenance of historical sites, especially the Buxa Fort which used to be a cellular jail during the freedom struggle and Gangutia Monastery which dates back to 1936 and is an important Buddhist shrine was discussed at the workshops and it was decided that concerned departments will be approached with specific proposals for financial and other assistances to preserve these heritage sites and facilitate the tourists to visit the sites.

Hearty local meal prepared by the villagers was served at the workshops. The workshops concluded with questions-answers and interviews in which the famous writer from Jalpaiguri Mr.Punyashlok Dasgupta confirmed that he will highlight the initiatives taken by the local youth through his articles and write ups.

Field training and capacity building workshops on rural/home hospitality management and operations, training and workshop on construction of local-style and sustainable accommodation and identification of various guided tourism activities and experiences to create a whole range of specialized and unique tourism products, waste and natural resource management etc. will be organized in the next phase.