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The intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of indigenous communities is an attraction to many tourists. Authentic ICH experiences rely on the perceptions and actions of both the host community and guests, a topic which has received with limited scholarly attention, particularly in recent research. This paper presents a conceptual model examining how the mutual (host-guest) authentication of ICH (integrating the perceptions of both hosts and guests) can potentially lead to community empowerment. A literature review has identified that the host community?s attitude and motivation towards ICH, their psychological and economic benefit from ICH, and their participation or involvement in the ICH, together influence the authentication of ICH by these communities. Similarly, a guest?s attitude to and motivation for ICH as well as the way the traditional objects, events or environment are experienced, influence the authentication of ICH. The proposed mutual ICH authentication model combines the interaction of such host and guest factors in authentication of ICH, i.e. both the host community and guest should perceive the same elements as authentic ICH through a synthesis of their own unique perspectives. The perceived authenticity of ICH by the host and guest is reflected in their loyalty, satisfaction, and support for tourism. Further, the model suggests that tourism based on authentic ICH has the potential to empower local communities in their economic, social, psychological and political domains. The proposed model may be useful for future research defining power relations in the authentication of ICH and improving community-based ecotourism through community empowerment. Keywords: intangible cultural heritage, authenticity, mutual authentication, cultural tourism, community empowerment

Small scale industries are suffering most from the marketing problems due to their owners' attitudes, units' capacity, and quality of products along with the scale of production. The researchers analyzed the problems of selected twenty small scale industrial units of various industrial groups of industrial estates of Sylhet division of Bangladesh to get insights of the problem. Primary and Secondary data were used for that research where primary data were collected from selected entrepreneurs by stratified sampling through a structured questionnaire. The collected data were processed through Excel 07 by the help of simple statistical tools like frequency, ratio, percentage etc. From the findings, it can be inferred that most of the enterprises (15 in number) are suffering from marketing problem in different aspects like competition, slow market demand and other problems. The researchers recommended the units to adopt aggressive attitude of marketing, select proper channel and mode of distribution, along with proper promotion method to combat with big firms and ensure their survivals.

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