Tourism ensuring local participation

Athidi devo bhava, (The guest is God), says our ancient scriptures and it has become the one of the codes of conduct of Indian life. The Tourism Department of Kerala seems to have imbibed it in their approach to tourists and such an approach has proven successful in luring visitors.

The department tries to ensure that the tourists are treated well by the people here and they will not find any difficulty in finding help or meeting their requirements. Hence the government support setting up of anything that interests the tourists – be it a quality ayurvedic resort, a luxury hotel or any other facility that augments the influx of tourists.

At the same time, the department tries to ensure that the local people also benefit from the tourism activities in their locality. The department has come up with many initiatives which require participation of the local people. For example, it employs the tribal people as tourist guides and active participants in tourism-related activities in the wildlife areas like Periyar Tiger Reserve. Self-help group of women have also been employed in tracking and preventing the encroachment to the reserve area. These kinds of initiatives help in creating an interest in the local people too in tourism-related activities and thus help sustain the growth in the tourism sector.