• Rajaul Karim
• Dr. Mustak Ahamed

Destination marketing has been an integral part of tourism industry for the promotion of the rural areas as well as the development of the local community. The concept of rural tourism is not new in the global tourism industry as in European countries it has been marketed as “Holiday Village”. The rural villages of West Bengal offers rural culture, tradition, arts, handicrafts, scenery, landscape which has an immense potential to attract tourists across the globe. The various destinations located in different districts of West Bengal lacks proper marketing strategies and promotion for better positioning of the destination image in the industry. The main objective of this paper is to understand the potentials of selected rural destinations (Ballavpur, Mukutmonipur and Antpur) of West Bengal, challenges involved in destination marketing and providing suitable suggestions for better rural tourism development from destination marketing perspective. The study is based on partial primary data through survey as well as secondary data collected from various sources like Government departments, books and journals concerned with this research.

Destination Marketing, Rural Tourism, Challenges, Recommendations

"MARKETING OF RURAL DESTINATIONS AS A TOURISM PRODUCT: A CASE STUDY OF SELECTED AREAS IN WEST BENGAL, INDIA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 3, page no.25-31, March-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1903C04.pdf

"MARKETING OF RURAL DESTINATIONS AS A TOURISM PRODUCT: A CASE STUDY OF SELECTED AREAS IN WEST BENGAL, INDIA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 3, page no. pp25-31, March-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1903C04.pdf