Listening Is Key
The uphill climb to encourage and motivate businesses to engage in responsible tourism cannot be underestimated.
Yet Kerala, a state in south western India, is slowly winning the argument by showcasing what others have done.
Dr. Venu Vasudevan , Secretary of Kerala Tourism, outlines his ambitious and unusual approach.
Kerala kick started its responsible tourism initiative by listening to practitioners and experts, organising a second International Conference on Responsible Tourism.
The conference gave the Kerala tourism department much clarity in approach and practice.
Kerala's responsible tourism strategy is based on a destination perspective, quite different from the usual business oriented approaches adopted elsewhere.
We started with initiatives in four destinations, where key stakeholders like local self government institutions, farmers groups, hoteliers, NGO's and government agencies created frameworks for economic, cultural and environmental responsibility.
In the last two years, responsible tourism has gained acceptance in these destinations as a key player in local economic development, with significant linkages developing between the industry and the local community.
We estimate that approximately €60,000 has benefited the local community from tourism through purchase of local produce and the use of services.
The assurance of a sustained local demand by hotels has enabled local governments to support farmers groups and landless women to take on agriculture, converting fallow land to productive fields. The relationship between hoteliers and the community has improved dramatically.
Major Challenges
The initiative has been closely followed by the tourism industry, achieving across the board support. However, there have been spectacular failures as well as significant gains.
The challenge now is to take responsible tourism practice across the state, creating templates that can be adopted by other destinations, motivating enterprises to embrace more responsible practices.
We will also continue our efforts to ensure that the benefits of tourism development in an emerging destination like Kerala reach local communities, particularly the poor.
Opportunities
We call our four destinations our RT 'laboratories', giving us a great opportunity to help hoteliers and tour operators recognise the advantages of reaching out to the community. It’s also meant that responsible tourism practice has been discussed and debated across the state, giving me great hope about the future. I can see a majority of tourism businesses engaging in responsible tourism in a phased manner.
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