ABSTRACT
This chapter tries to assess the potentiality of tourism industry to grow as an alternative livelihood for Sundarbans islanders. Sundarbans tourism offers three tourism options including wildlife tourism, beach tourism and religious tourism. Wildlife tourism is well established here due to the presence of rich bio-diversity. This study focuses on the scope of religious tourism to support traditional economy along with wildlife tourism. Gangasagar is one of such situated at the confluence of River Ganga in Sagar Island of Indian Sundarbans Delta. The annual gathering (Gangasagar Mela) attracts thousands of pilgrims crisscross the country. The study has found that a large share of annual income comes from this annual Gangasagar, and though agriculture is a dominant sector, still tourism related activities have distinctive nature in some parts of Sagar Island. This study has assessed the tourist satisfaction level evaluating the gap between demand and available tourism environment. This study tried to suggest few recommendations according to the guidelines of Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria
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