(Continued from last fortnight)
Dr. M.G. Rao, Chief Conservator of Forests, Puducherry: In Ecotourism, unlike other forms of tourism, comfort is not the primary objective. But travellers should be aware of the dangers in travelling through the wild without local guides as animals have walk paths that should not be intruded on.
Dharmalingam Venugopal of the Nilgiris Documentation Centre: The problems of mass tourism in Ooty – from a traffic of 2.5 million tourists a year it is estimated to rise to 4 million in a few years – have to be solved post-haste. Though a popular destination, tourism cannot become the primary activity as the permanent residents have their own lives to lead. Yet it is they who will be the ones to face the challenges of conservation, stability and protection of soil, slopes and water resources, town planning, etc. Tour packages should be designed in a way that will contribute to the community welfare.
Nirmal of Exnora: More than a thousand villages have converted waste into wealth. Users of toilets would be paid monthly, while the management converted the human waste into manure and sold the produce.
Soma Basu of The Hindu, who contributed to the column ‘Road less travelled’: There is a need for responsible tourism. Vandalism continues unchecked and historical spots are damaged with names and love messages carved all over them. Many beautiful places are terribly neglected.
The most interesting presentation during the two days was by Dr. Venu (Secretary for Tourism, Government of Kerala) who spoke on Responsible Tourism (RT) which his State was now focussed on. He said: “What we have done in Kerala to initiate Responsible Tourism has been a three-year-old journey, drawing in every person involved with tourism and the people living in the destinations, business houses and NGOs. People who had little in common were brought together by tourism.
Unregulated tourism development is not desirable and, if not controlled or supervised, leads to negative impacts. In any destination the key players are the place, community and industry. But the difference between business perspective and destination perspective must be recognised.
The characteristics of a destination vary in respect of heritage, ecosystems, geography, etc. Tourism is based on services and activities, community involvement and culture. In this complex environment, Kerala’s Tourism Department decided that it could not implement its idea of ‘Better Together’ without understanding its working process, and so it took four destinations with different characteristics, at different points of each destination’s life cycle. They were Kovalam, a beach destination; Kumarakom, a backwater resort destination; Thekkady, a National Park area; and Wayanad, a hill destination where extensive developments are coming up.
In the first stage, there were destination-level meetings, dialogues with stakeholders, discussing their priorities, their challenges and understanding their mentality. In the second stage there were surveys to gather baseline data. In the third stage, they tried to sign memorandums with hoteliers for commitment. One thing that was observed in all the areas was a disconnect between business and communities. The community was not employed and their produce was not used, depriving them of benefit from tourism.
The Department urged the hotels and other businesses connected with tourism to create livelihoods for the locals, especially for the poor. The hotels were willing to co-operate but wanted assurances on regularity, quality, and pricing of supplies. The community was unaware of the requirements of the hotels. The industry was told to get its hands dirty and get out of the comfort trap. Most hotels leave it to the managers to get their supplies. This new initiative needed all the staff to attend the meetings and define in all possible details what they needed from the community. Chefs who did not know Malayalam had to explain to a villager what quality meant. They also put a technical support unit in place.
This initiative was not charity but responsibility. Hoteliers came out of the comfort zone to try and implement what they wanted the villagers to do. They began talking to Panchayat members and procurement committees. This was the first time many a Panchayat member stepped into a 5-star hotel.
Community involvement in production does not mean one mass producer in the village but spread across households. A genuine procurement supply system was evolved through a cycle of leadership, local ownership, strong grassroots networks, active procurement and effective partnering with industry. Over Rs. 5 million worth of produce from the community has been purchased since the project began and where there was conflict, there is a cordial relationship and economic benefit.
Unlike Kumarakom and Wayanad, Thekkady was a failure due to Tamil Nadu and Kerala sharing markets. In Kovalam, the leadership by local politicians was bad and Responsible Tourism is still stuttering.
NGOs also got involved in the project. One such was the Kudumabashree women’s group who produced the vegetables the industry needed and transactions were done by the Samrudhi group. At pesent, 650 women benefit from this. They have also opened an open market to sell their produce.
In Kumarakom, the tourism boom is 12 years old. But there was no community involvement, rather there was conflict. Only three hotels volunteered to participate in the project. Through a series of partner meetings, product samples were tested, suggestions for improvement were made and a calendar for seasonal vegetables was documented.
It is clear that if the industry extends a hand forward, a beautiful relationship can develop and there can be sustainable and measurable economic linkages with a pro-poor bias. The village is not an exotic zoo to be visited. In Responsible Tourism industry is told that a visit to a village is a visit to a higher place of learning and an experience that the tourist takes away. The learning is that the community has a richer lifestyle.
A tour in Wayanad was designed by the locals who were trained in basic English. The first stop of the group was to a sacred grove called Kavu. There were no exotic animals there, just a dense micro-ecosystem. For the local person it was an embodiment of man’s submission to nature, a prayer. This belief had to be explained to the visitor so that it would lead him or her to experience the same feeling. Thus visitors empathised with the guides who spoke respectfully of the Kavu, and thought of the importance of nature to the community. The local tea stall had a small crèche where visitors could see children, poor but clean and dressed decently. The community was in harmony and settled. Visitors needed to appreciate that people were letting them into their community. Each visitor had a checklist of 101 things he/she would do on the trip and these had to be ticked one by one. Such tours are radical to the visitor and have contributed to a better understanding of the community.
Destination planning has become everyone’s baby, hoteliers are actively engaging in local self-governance, sitting in Gram Sabhas. Shades of responsibility are being discovered.”
(Concluded)
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