Abstract
The current study intended to geospatially analyze the potentiality and site suitability of geo-ecotourism in West Bengal, India. The state of West Bengal is a great platform for diverse tourism and has enormous potential to cultivate geo-ecotourism, as has come up in recent years. The current effort throws some valuable light on the possibility of turning the many geologically, geomorphologically and ecologically significant tourist spots of West Bengal into geo-ecotourism sites, aided with geospatial techniques. The study deals with the qualitative and quantitative investigation of the potentiality of the whole state by dividing it into several geo-ecotourism zones, based on its physiographic setting and Land Use Land Cover (LULC) features, using satellite image data. The application of geospatial technology combined with Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) was employed for this geospatial analysis to portray the potential zones using cartographic and statistical techniques. Furthermore, nine criteria were selected to run the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method to determine the site suitability for geo-ecotourism. The present submission attempts to record the mapping and analysis of geo-ecotourism of West Bengal employing a secondary database, an expert’s opinions and primary observations, with the application of the AHP method and GIS. The outcomes of the study were found to be very significant, as they indicate a proviso for geo-ecotourism development in the state and will contribute to the formation of location-specific planning and the sustainable management of geo-ecotourism.
Highlights
Geo-ecotourism is the perfect blend of geotourism, which encourages the population to become interested in the sustainable preservation of places by allowing them to appreciate historical heritage sites or geological landscapes and ecotourism, which aims at preserving the place’s natural and cultural resources
Bengal is incredibly enriching as the state possesses a patchwork of different ethnicities; and the inhabitants of West Bengal inherited their originality and aspiration from the substantial Indian mosaic
In recent years, the changing patterns of tourism, behavioural changes and purchase habits of the tourists, etc., have encouraged the government to explore some other forms of tourism, such as ecotourism, geo-tourism, agro-tourism, wildlife tourism, rural tourism, etc., and geo-ecotourism will add some extra sugar in it
Summary
Geo-ecotourism is the perfect blend of geotourism, which encourages the population to become interested in the sustainable preservation of places by allowing them to appreciate historical heritage sites or geological landscapes and ecotourism, which aims at preserving the place’s natural and cultural resources. It is a combination of the two words ‘geo’. A further intensified outlook of geo-ecotourism was undertaken through checking out the site suitability of the coastal region of West Bengal. Digha, which is located 187 km southwest of Kolkata, is situated in the Purba Medinipur district (Figure 15), which is the prime spot of the coastal tracts of Bengal [71]. The other significant tourist places (Figure 15) of the region are Mandarmoni, Tajpur, Shankarpur, Junput, etc. [67,71], and they are connected [71,73]
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