Urban heritage tourism in Chandernagore, India: revival of shared Indo-French Legacy

Abstract

Heritage tourism offers authentic value-addition to homogenized experiences providing authentic, one-of-a-kind take-away. Apart from popular world heritage sites there are little-exposed gems which can offer novelty and hedonics together. Chandernagore, located on the western bank of river Hugli, 40 km north of Kolkata, India, germinated during the medieval period, later became a thriving French Colony in Bengal displays brilliant prospect for urban heritage tourism. A detailed spatio-temporal inventory of shared heritage legacies both tangible and intangible is prepared using old literatures, oral interviews, GPS plotting and GIS mapping which offers a great platform for promoting urban heritage tourism. Chandernagore is at interesting cross-roads – bridging the infrastructural gaps and garnering involvement of the locals, for ascertaining true potentiality – the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats (SWOT) are identified to prepare a blueprint for heritage tourism revival strategy for the shared Indo-French melange. Empirical study is conducted for tourist profiling along with usage of descriptive statistics and to carry out perception analysis of locals and tourists. The SWOT analysis leads to a comprehensive strategy formulation which aims to act as base for the revival of Indo-French cultural melange through sustainable, robust tourism emphasizing the core and innovation capitals, tourism development strategies and management, tourism outcomes and resource sustainability.