West Bengal homestay portal: only certified stays can use 'homestay' name

West Bengal has launched an online portal to register, inspect and certify homestays at the state's tourist spots, and only properties certified through it will be allowed to call themselves homestays. State Tourism Minister Shankar Ghosh launched the portal on Thursday, 5 November 2026, at the Udayachal Tourist Lodge in Salt Lake, Kolkata. He said there are 5,479 registered homestays in West Bengal, of which 2,679 are enlisted with the Tourism department, and that owners can now complete the whole process, from application and inspection to certification, without visiting government offices. A new website for booking government tourist lodges will follow soon, he said.

Homestays are a popular way to stay in West Bengal's tourist areas, including the Darjeeling hills, the Dooars and the Sundarbans. For travellers they offer local food and family hospitality; for rural families they bring income from spare rooms. Without a common standard, however, a traveller has little way of knowing whether a property using the homestay label has been checked by anyone.

The portal tries to answer that with a simple rule. If a property is not certified on the government platform, it cannot call itself a homestay. Certification follows an inspection, so in principle a traveller choosing a certified homestay gets a property that the Tourism department has checked. For owners, an online process removes trips to district offices and paperwork, which is often the biggest barrier for small rural households.

The minister's own numbers show the scale of the task. Only about half of the state's registered homestays are enlisted with the Tourism department, so a large group of operators will need to come onto the new system to keep using the name. How fast the department can inspect and certify thousands of properties, many in remote hill and forest areas, will decide whether the rule improves quality or simply creates a backlog.

The plan to put homestays and government tourist lodges on one booking platform could matter most for travellers. A single official site where visitors can compare and book certified homestays and state-run lodges would cut reliance on informal bookings through phone numbers and social media.

Peepals calculation: of the 5,479 registered homestays the minister cited, 2,679 are enlisted with the Tourism department, or about 49% (2,679 ÷ 5,479 ≈ 0.489). That leaves 2,800 registered homestays (5,479 − 2,679) not yet on the department's list, which would need to be certified through the portal to keep using the homestay name. Our calculation from the reported figures.

Short-term: homestay owners across West Bengal, especially in the hills, the Dooars and the Sundarbans, need to apply on the portal and prepare for inspection to keep using the homestay label. Travellers planning winter trips can start looking for certified properties.

Long-term: if the certification is enforced and the combined booking platform arrives, travellers should find it easier to book checked homestays through official channels, and rural owners could gain from the visibility of a government listing. The forthcoming homestay policy will set the detailed standards.

Who is affected: homestay owners and rural families who rent rooms, travellers to West Bengal's hills, forests and coast, tour operators who book homestays for clients, and district tourism officials who will handle inspections.

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