Promoting intangible cultural heritage (ICH) tourism: Strategy for socioeconomic development of snake charmers (India) through geoeducation, geotourism and geoconservation

UNESCO has advocated for intangible cultural heritage tourism (ICHT) for its dual-folds benefits, i.e. to gear up of the economy and encourage sustainable development. Whereas well-established geotourism combining with ICHT may further boost up not only the conservation of geoheritage legacy but also complement each other and may also reopen an afresh avenue of tourism-economy. In the past, India is well known for its snake charmers but due to the ban on livelihood, most of them are unemployed and suffered from hunger and starvation. Moreover, the potentiality of ICH tourism, in favor of this group, has never been discovered in such a geoheritage-rich country. Here, we systematically proposed a promotional strategy for the development of ICHT, combining with geotourism, and for the sustainable development of this community after strategic care for wildlife (e.g. endangered snake species). As this study is concerned with literature review and field-based participatory survey methods, among the acquainted sites of snake charmers especially, three zones have been selected for strategic promotion. The prime goal is to highlight the geoeducation, geotourism and geoconservation potentials of this community people and geoheritage sites, belong to the three respected zones (Zone 1: Rajasthan; Zone 2: West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha; Zone 3: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh). The study outcome displays the enlightened major corners for further improvement for each ‘zone’ and each valuable site requires more consideration and better management (government and private partnership) in near future for more sustainably developed ICH and geoheritage destinations which would attract a greater number of tourist, not only from inside the country but also from abroad