For the first time, the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) has launched a mobile app to ensure that hundreds of homestay owners and other local stakeholders of the tourism industry in Darjeeling and Kalimpong hills get adequate business.

Dawa Gyalpo Sherpa, the chief coordinator of adventure tourism in the GTA, said that the objective is to see that hundreds of homestay owners, cab operators and tourist guides earn regularly by providing services to tourists in the hills.

They can get themselves registered in the newly launched app named “darjeelingkalimpongtourismapp”, and can be downloaded from Google Playstore, he said.

“The stakeholders can register themselves through the app (available in Google Playstore) free of cost. It will help them find tourists who intend to stay at homestays or avail transport service or the service of a guide,” said Sherpa.

He said that over the past few years, hundreds of homestay facilities have come up across Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts. Such accommodations were promoted to provide an alternative earning opportunity to people in remote locations of the hills.

“But what we have noticed is that a section of homestay owners after eventually handing over their facilities to outsiders on lease with a contract of a meagre amount. They are doing it because of an assured income but it is affecting the basic concept of homestay tourism,” he added.

The app has been launched so that the GTA has a record of the homestay facilities and the local homestay owners can get tourists through it and get decent earnings instead of providing the property to somebody else on lease.

“Once a homestay owner registers through the app, he can directly contact tourists and have steady business round the year without involving any middleman or agencies,” Sherpa said.

The owners can also put details of their properties with photographs, location and description on how to reach the place, mode of transport, nearest airport and railway station and local attractions in the app. “We will put QR codes in railway stations, airports, and other transit points so that tourists can scan the code and install the app to find a homestay, a cab or a guide,” said a source.

To popularise the app, the tourism department of the GTA has started sending teams to common locations like Sittong in Kurseong subdivision, where homestays, to inform the owners. “We will cover all locations where homestays have come up to encourage owners. Transporters will be told about the app soon,” said Sherpa.