God's own dishes

Kerala's exquisite cuisine

The next time you curse your spouse for serving up puttu and kadala or appam and stew for breakfast, pause and count your blessings. There are people around the world who are prepared to spend precious money to travel all the way to Kerala to sample some of God's own dishes.

Apparently - if an international travel magazine is to be believed - these two dishes, along with tapioca and fish curry, constitute the best and healthiest of breakfasts. That conclusion may or may not be the outcome of the public relations efforts of Kerala Tourism, but it certainly drives home the need for a concerted and focused campaign to win the hearts and souls of globetrotters.

For a State that has generated few avenues for industrial aggrandizement, tourism still appears to be the silver lining. But the recent efforts of neighbouring States could well push Kerala to the back benches.

The Union Government, for instance, has allotted Rs 1.5 crore for the development of infrastructure necessary to boost beach tourism in Tamil Nadu's Kanyakumari district, specifically in Muttom and Thekurichi.

And Karnataka's Tourism Department has embarked on a project to prepare an archaeological directory of the important monuments and places of interest that could be projected as tourist spots to visitors from both within the country and abroad. The archaeological directory is expected to list 1,360 monuments - including Humpi - out of the estimated 20,000 monuments in the State. A directory of artistes of culture and folklore of the State is also planned.

The problem that Kerala now needs to tackle is how to reinvent itself as a destination of choice for the international traveller. As marketing gurus Al Ries and Jack Trout say, "Marketing battles are not fought in places like Dallas, Detroit or Denver. Marketing battles are fought inside the mind."

Remember the old proverb: the way to the heart is through the stomach. Cuisine is as good a way to capture the mind of the weary international traveller as any other. Kerala has a bouquet of cuisines to offer ranging from the Malabar Muslim delicacies to the exotic Travancore Syrian Christian dishes. Not to forget the traditional food of the Hindu extended families.

The Casino Group had a visit from a large delegation of US chefs, food and travel writers. And their taste buds were really impressed by the bite and tang of the Kerala spread. Several of them have promised to come back for a second helping. And, the Casino Group was optimistic that they will be the ambassadors for Kerala's cuisine in foreign lands.

The foreign traveller is not interested in soup and soufflé. That he can get in large measure in any part of the world he travels. But not so, the puttu and kadala or the appam and stew. And that is what the large hoteliers as well as the smaller resort keepers are banking on today.

Can Kerala continue to capture the minds and imaginations of weary travellers? The answer to that will have to come from beyond the backwaters.

Niche tourism in Kerala

Kerala cashes in on the tourist dollar


As Kerala opens its doors to the thousands of tourists who are expected to come to taste the offerings of God's Own Country this season, some recent happenings in the State's travel and tourism sector do not augur well for the future of the industry.

Thanks to the blitzkrieg of advertising campaigns by Kerala Tourism touting the charms of the land and thanks also to dozens of press meets and public addresses by the State's tourism ministry and bureaucracy, it is easy to get carried away by the impression that Kerala's success as an increasingly upmarket and pricey destination is due to the State Government's single-handed dedication and unstinting promotional efforts.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Paradoxical as it may sound for a State that is not exactly renowned for an abundance of entrepreneurial gung-ho, history tells us that the first few important breakthroughs in niche tourism came from a handful of pioneering tour operators and hoteliers. By innovating new experiences for the alert independent traveller, they turned what was essentially a one-trick (read Kovalam) pony into a bouquet of vivid and enticingly different destinations.

Be it the houseboats that opened up the backwaters - and revived, to some extent, the dying tradition of boatbuilding - or the treetop layovers amidst thick woods or the ayurvedic spas that rejuvenate both body and mind, all these were radical departures from the official brand of government-sponsored tourism - which boiled down to a chauffeured romp in an Ambassador car from one government guest house to another.

Kerala's inland waterways

Inland waterways: Kerala's lifeline


Anyone who has travelled even a minor distance in Kerala will quickly realise the importance of inland waterways for the State's economy and culture.

Not only are they the lifeline for the people who live along the backwaters, they are also the focal point for the thriving tourism industry that has grown up by utilising the natural charms offered by Kerala's inland waterway system.

Once, the inland waterways were the mainstay of trade as well, with kettuvallams laden with rice and other goods traversing the stretches of backwaters, especially in the Kuttanad area, then the rich rice bowl of Kerala.

Today the inland waterway system is in a state of disuse and neglect. This is a pity as a recent study by the Thiruvananthapuram-based National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC) says that Kerala's inland waterways have the potential to be a low-cost transport option for the State as well as a major source of employment.

Officially, the inland waterways in Kerala stretch to a length of 1,687 km, corresponding to 11.6 percentage of a total of 14,544 km in the country. The major stretch is the West Coast Canal connecting Hosdurg in the north and Poovar, near Thrivananthapuram in the south, which has a length of 560 km.

However, the NATPAC study says Kerala has over 1,800 km of navigable stretches. The sector directly employs between 1.5 lakh and 2 lakh people in the operation and maintenance of boats, and for each person directly employed, at least two others are indirectly employed in allied activities such as boat building, servicing of boats, tourism and so on, the study adds.

Endogenous tourism

Endogenous tourism aims to harness the traditional skills of rural artisans.

In December 2003, buried in the inside pages of some newspapers, was a small story about a possible initiative that could augur well for Kerala's future. Aranmula, a tiny, sleepy hamlet on the banks of the Pamba river in Pathanamthitta district, might become one of the sites to feature in the Endogenous Tourism Project of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). A team from the Government of India has just completed a visit to assess Aranmula's suitability for inclusion in the project, and a decision is likely to be made soon.