Kurseong observes World Tourism Day with a theme 'Rethinking Tourism'
World Tourism Day 2022 was celebrated for the 1st time in Kurseong among the tourism stake holders, hoteliers, home-stay owners and restaurant owners extended to taxi and communication services too. The theme for the year 2022 is ‘Rethinking Tourism’. Based on this the said theme, the tourism forum in Kurseong was specialized to GI Tourism, in other words Geographical Indicator Tourism. GI Tourism was given due importance to bring back the loss glory to Kurseong which is the hub of 6 hills and 4 sister valleys, namely Durpin Hill, Giddha Hill, DowHill, St. Mary’s Hill, Deorali Hill and Maharani Hills. The 4 sister valleys are Jungphana Valley, Beltar Valley, Ambootia Valley and Sittong Valley. The town is proud to have beautiful sunsets, waterfalls and north facing view of KanchenDzonga, sprawling tea Gardens and deep rooted forests.
Swastika Gurung the founder and proprietor of Swastika Tours and Travels & Home stays proposed that each hill and valley should be developed as different tourist places in Kurseong as each landscape differs from the rest and each hill has more than three sigh seeing point to the least. She focused more on GI Tourism because the two GI products of Darjeeling and Kalimpong hills are found in Kurseong too, Dalle Khorsani and Darjeeling Tea. In addition, in her introductory speech she mentioned that tourism business here means each citizen should earn their livelihood from vendors to traders and tourism stake holders as the Dale Khorsani and Darjeeling tea is served in every household and tourists first set their foot in the hills of Kurseong when they enter from the plains of Siliguri after crossing Rohini Valley. Also to add, she is the Managing Director of Darjeeling Free Society and the team had worked together as Research Committee with GTA for inclusion of GI tag for Dalle Khorsani both in Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts in the year 2020. This started from Kurseong itself, thus we should rethink and build ourselves into GI Tourism hub as we have all the resources to represent ourselves as GI Tourism Town (Both for Darjeelling Tea & Dalle Khorsani ). She added that entrepreneurship should be boosted among women folk as the weaker section of the society shall find her threshold and not be reduced to mere doormat. This is why she named her business under her own name so that she wanted to set an example that women can do, so that others will follow the will.
The proprietor and team members of White Orchid Tours and Travel expressed the reason behind the naming of their travels business in the name of white orchid as Kurseong is also known as the land of white orchid. White orchid is no longer seen but we should bloom according to time and revive the lost charm that our town owes. The unemployment crisis shall be solved if we work together by rebuilding tourism once again and we work in unity. Dipankar Gurung and his partner Ragay stole the limelight by singing songs of the hills and lyrics carried the culture and beauty of the Himalayas.
Sri Jeetu Giri was remembered for his pioneership in introducing the concept of tourism in Kurseong in the year 2000. Special thanks was given to all the stake holders namely, 33 Dream Cake, Moninginis Cake Shop, Tenzin Wine Stores, Cansala Hotel and Resturant, Sri Heeran Tikhatri’s famous moomo hub, Sanjay Magar’s homestay Singel, EJ’s Court St. Mary’s Hill, Sri Balaram Chettri jyu’s homestay and all those holding travels business too.
The event was held at 33 Dream café, while Welcome speech was delivered by Mr. Yogen, Manager of the café who was happy to welcome us and our initiatives towards sustainable tourism. Sri Chopel Tenzin, a successful business entrepreneur had worked to promote the tourism in Kurseong in his youtube videos as Destination Kurseong 2020. He expressed that we shall grow when we work together and all the interested enterprenuer can come under one banner to make Kurseong known to the world, although it was known to the world as Land of Schools previously. The event was supported by the musical night which ended with a kind vote of thanks t all those who made the ventide a successful one , while we meet again at our member Abhisek Lemo Gurung’s and his team’s annual Musical festival also known by the name Pine Tree Music Festival. The once upon a time British India town still maintains itself in Western style of identity evn though it has past 75 years of Independence of free India.