Quintessential Kerala

Just saw A Reading Room With a View, Stark Communications’ recent ad film for Kerala Tourism. And I’m captivated. 

Arguably Kerala Tourism’s best film since Your Moment is Waiting was made seven years ago, A Reading Room With a View is a quiet film; there’s no in-your-face drama, but it deftly grows on you. It captures all that Kerala is — the vividness, harmony, quirkiness, medley, ordinariness, eclecticism, contradictions and enchantment.     

The Kovalam blues

The sky is slate-grey and there’s a thunderstorm brewing in the distant Western Ghats. And I’m thinking of clear blue skies, the aquamarine blue of the sea off Trivandrum and the warmth of the sun. With clear skies in short supply, this clip of the blue Arabian Sea and Kovalam’s Hawah and Lighthouse beaches will have to do. I took it from the deck of the Kovalam/Vizhinjam lighthouse early on a morning in March this year when I was working on this story for National Geographic Traveller India.

On a Sunday in Trivandrum

The Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple

Did a version of this story for the July issue of National Geographic Traveller India.

Rise early on a Sunday and join one of several free walking tours conducted in Thiruvananthapuram (also known as Trivandrum). While Tree Walk explores the city’s tree wealth, Heritage Walk delves into its social, cultural, and architectural history. I’ve found these freewheeling walks to be a great way to discover facets and stories of the city that would otherwise pass right by us. Both tours usually start at 7 a.m. on Sunday mornings and, over a couple of hours, cover one of the city’s neighbourhoods. Though both walks typically happen at least once a month, they tend to be more frequent from December to April. (Details on future walks on Facebook pages: Tree Walk www.facebook.com/groups/115646138581706; Heritage Walk www.facebook.com/groups/heritagewalktvm)

No visit to Thiruvananthapuram is complete without admiring the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, possibly the world’s wealthiest religious institution, and exploring the busy Fort neighbourhood around it. (Only Hindus allowed in the temple, which also has a dress code: men go bare chested wearing dhotis while women wear saris or dhotis wrapped over salwars. Dhotis are available on rent; footwear, cameras, mobile phones, bags, etc. not allowed inside the temple; )

A few hundred metres from the temple’s main entrance is the Kuthira Malika Palace, also called the Puthen Malika, which houses a museum of artefacts belonging to Travancore’s former royals. (No footwear allowed inside)

A Tree Walk at the Model School

For a further dose of history, art, and greenery, head to the tree-filled government museum complex that contains a couple of museums, a zoo, and an art gallery. At the very least, visit the eye-catching Napier Museum with its mélange of architectural styles and collection of archaeological and historical artefacts. (Open 10 a.m.-4.45 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursday-Sunday; 1-4.45 p.m. on Wednesdays; closed Mondays; entry adults Rs 10; children Rs 5; no cameras allowed.)

Next, stop at the nearby Sree Chitra Art Gallery to see paintings by Raja Ravi Varma and Nicholas and Svetoslav Roerich. (Open 10 a.m.-4.45 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursday-Sunday; 1-4.45 p.m. on Wednesdays; closed Mondays; entry adults Rs 20; children Rs 10; no cameras allowed.)

For a booster shot of history, head to the Keralam Museum of History and Heritage located opposite the main museum complex. The museum, which opened a few years ago, traces the region’s history and global connections across the ages. Its collection includes Neolithic stone axes, a jar and bowl used in Iron Age burials, Roman coins, and sculptures of bronze, wood, and stone. (Open 10 a.m.-5.30 p.m.; closed Mondays. and public holidays; entry adults Rs 20; children Rs 10; foreigners Rs 200.)

Round off a heritage-filled day with a mesmerising Kathakali or Koodiyattom performance at Margi, a cultural organisation that promotes Kerala’s classical performing art forms. Margi conducts regular Kathakali and Koodiyattom performances through the year, but when planning a visit, it’s best to give them a call to find out what’s on. (Tel: 0471-2478806/2473349/98470-99941.

Kovalam calls

Hawah and Lighthouse beaches from the deck of the lighthouse

Did a version of this story for the June issue of National Geographic Traveller India. 

Some of my earliest memories of family vacations in Thiruvananthapuram involve Kovalam. The seemingly never-ending drive zigzagging along twisty roads, the gradual descent between palm groves, the tanginess in the air and the sudden expanse of the beach, with the sea stretching off into the yonder.  

Back then, Kovalam was little more than a fishing village, with few visitors and fewer buildings on its three main beaches—the Ashok or Grove beach, Hawah or Eve’s beach, and the southernmost Lighthouse beach. Today, it’s a small town, the beaches lined by rows of shops, restaurants, and hotels. 

Kovalam’s beaches and its warm, shallow waters ideal for swimming are its biggest draw, which is why it can get pretty crowded with visitors on weekends and holidays. But there are also other ways to explore this laid-back town. 

Deck with a view  

The best place to get a fix on Kovalam’s topography is the observation deck of the candy-striped lighthouse that commands the southern end of the eponymous Lighthouse beach. It’s an approximately 157-step barefoot climb (footwear is not allowed inside the lighthouse), including a final stretch up an almost vertical metal ladder, to the deck. You’ll probably arrive breathless, but the climb is worth it for the view. And if you go up as soon as the lighthouse opens for the day, there’s a good chance you’ll have the deck to yourself for a few minutes (daily 10 a.m.-12.30 p.m. and 2-5 p.m.; tickets Rs 3 to Rs 25; camera passes Rs 20 and Rs 25). 

Surf for a cause 

Kovalam has a small, but growing surfing scene thanks to the Kovalam Surf Club, which opened here in 2005. The club offers surfing lessons to people with varying levels of expertise. The only requirement is that learners have some basic swimming skills, says Mani Sreekumar, the club’s director. It runs classes through the year, except during the monsoon months from June to August. The club also has a shop that sells and rents out surfing gear. And the club’s profits go to Sebastian Indian Social Projects, a non-profit that supports women’s empowerment and education programmes for school dropouts in the area (kovalamsurfclub.com; classes Rs 1,000 for 1.5 hours). 

On the water 

For the mildly adventurous, there are snorkelling expeditions on a catamaran and speedboat rides (prices start at Rs 3,000 for 2.5 hours and Rs 300/person respectively). The speedboats usually head a few kilometers out to sea and zip along the coast, giving those on board a view of Kovalam and its adjoining beaches. Kovalam’s best snorkelling spots are off the rocky headlands that separate its main beaches, but the sea can get rough during the monsoon. So the best time to go snorkelling here is from December to March, when the sea is relatively calm. The region’s marine life includes mussels, plants and a dazzling array of fishes including bat fish, parrot fish, angel fish, groupers, moray eels and so on.  And in May 2015, the Kerala Adventure Tourism Promotion Society launched scuba diving in Kovalam (Rs 3,000/person for 30 minutes and Rs 1,500/person for 15 minutes).  

The sessions, which include 30 minutes of familiarisation in a swimming pool, are best booked ahead. (For more call  +471-2320777/+91-94460-74020 or email: adventuretourismkerala.gov@gmail.com)

Sundowner  

The best way to recover from all this activity is to end the day the Kovalam way — with a sundowner (now mostly non-alcoholic thanks to Kerala’s new liquor laws) and a meal at one of the restaurants that line the Hawah and Lighthouse beaches. 

While the best bet on Hawah beach is the multi-cuisine restaurant at the Sea Face hotel, Lighthouse beach has many options, ranging from Lonely Planet (known for its vegetarian-only menu) to Beatles and Malabar Café. My personal favourite, though, is the German Bakery on Lighthouse beach with its terrace with a view, relaxed ambience and eclectic menu. 

Kovalam also offers upper-end beachside dining options at the Vivanta by Taj-Kovalam and The Leela Kovalam. Dinner at either hotel comes with distinctive views of Thiruvananthapuram’s coastline and fishing vessels twinkling like a thousand fireflies on the sea.

Ferry notes

A shorter version is in this month’s Second Anniversary issue of National Geographic Traveller India. The published piece is not on the Nat Geo website, so there’s no link to it. So pick up the issue. 

“The boat service is dying out, you know,” says Raju, the driver of the autorickshaw I am in. We’re careening through the pre-dawn darkness of Kottayam in his auto, heading towards the “boat station” at Kanjiram. I’ve just told him that I plan to take a public ferry from Kanjiram to Alappuzha on Kerala’s coast.

“With more roads and bridges, there aren’t many takers for the ferry. It’s quite slow, you know,” he explains, perhaps perplexed by my interest in the ferry. But when I tell him that I’m a writer, he exhales in understanding as though all is revealed.

As dawn breaks, Raju drops me off at the Kanjiram jetty, an asbestos-roof shed with a small concrete pier. It is the terminus for the Kerala State Water Transport Department’s daily Kottayam-Alappuzha boat service.

The first departure of the day is at 7.15 a.m., although timings can change if a boat has been sent for repairs. I’m rather early, so I sit on a ledge and study the ferry. This is no elegant creation of wood, glass and metal, but a squat, wooden workhorse that looks like it’s been around for a while. Noticing me on the pier, the ferry’s crew invites me on board and tells me to make myself at home. I pick a seat in the prow and wait.

A cat anticipating breakfast

Today, houseboats prowl Kerala’s backwaters, that intricate, interconnected maze of rivers, lakes, and canals that spread across Kottayam, Alappuzha, Kochi, and Kollam. A while ago though, these waterways were the liquid highways connecting large parts of Kerala and ferries were the region’s mass rapid transit systems, linking inland trading centres like Kottayam with Alappuzha on the coast. In A History of Travancore published in 1878, P. Shangoonny Menon, scholar and official in the government of Travancore, writes how in the 1750s: “Several canals were opened to facilitate and extended communication from the back-water to the new town of Alleppey (Alappuzha).”

My interest in the ferry though is personal: I’ve heard older friends and family talk about running errands, or commuting to work on it. As one friend put it, “The ferry was my physical link to the outside world.” With the evolution of faster modes of transport, public ferries may no longer be very popular, but they’re still a window into the region; a window I wanted to open.

I’m woken from my reverie by the voices of people trickling on board. Several carry plastic sacks bulging at the seams; others are armed with fishing rods and nets or farm implements. Almost everyone seems to have a newspaper. Most passengers seem to be regulars; greetings are offered and gossip exchanged. A few choose a seat and dive into their newspapers, while others swap tales about farm workers playing truant. And then, with a toot or two, we’re off.

The glistening 'blackwaters' against the sun

It’s a beautiful early summer morning, the sun is still a baby and there’s a cool breeze. Along the waterways people are beginning their day: brushing teeth, washing clothes and utensils; cleaning fish, and mending nets. We pull up by a makeshift pier for the crew to fix a mechanical issue. A fishmonger’s boat is docked nearby and a passenger makes use of this unscheduled stop to inspect his catch. She returns to the ferry triumphant, a handful of fish wrapped in newspaper.

As the canal opens out into the Vembanad Lake it’s easy to see why Kerala’s backwaters lure people from across the world. I feel like I’m in the middle of the perfect postcard, with green fields that stretch to the horizon, flocks of birds wheeling overhead, battalions of coconut trees guarding the banks, and lotuses blooming in water tinged gold by the rising sun. It’s all rather intoxicating.

We pass churches, mosques, temples, and houses in almost every colour of the rainbow — bright hues of violet, indigo, green, and orange. There are “cool bars” and “fish centres” and more mundane tea shops, hotels and Ayurveda centres that promise “relaxing” massages. For a while, we’re escorted by a squadron of ducks. Like an elephant, the bulk of a houseboat emerges from the mist, a film song booming from an extra-large telly on its deck.

The boat putters along, zigzagging across the water to pick up or drop off passengers. Some jetties are crumbling concrete slabs that seem to be in the middle of nowhere; at one, a dog greets a man as he steps off the boat and they head off into the distance.

A cheerful 'cool bar' and 'fish centre' 

I observe the people on board. There aren’t too many of us, only about 30. In the row of seats right behind me a tourist from Germany and a commuter talk about cameras and lenses; the conversation then veers to toddy tapping. The aroma of sambar and warm idlis wrapped in banana leaves wafts across the boat. My stomach lets out a low growl in response: A family has just opened its breakfast pack.

As we get closer to Alappuzha, the action picks up. The waterways get busier and more people are waiting to board the ferry at each stop. At one jetty a small gaggle of scrubbed, giggling schoolboys gets on. They head to the prow, prop themselves on the sills, and watch me scribble in my notebook. They begin a discussion about why this saipu or “foreigner” is writing notes. When I join the conversation in Malayalam, there are half-embarrassed smiles around.

Soon, the boat is as crowded as the Metro at rush hour. And suddenly, we’re in Alappuzha town inching through water hyacinth and trash towards the main boat station. It’s a little after 9.30 a.m. and there’s a small crowd waiting to board the ferry on it’s return trip.

I’ve had a lovely morning on the backwaters for just Rs 16. As I head away from the crowded jetty, it strikes me that the ferry’s days of glory may perhaps be over, but it still matters to many people in the region.  And that’s just the way it should be.

The Vitals

• A one-way Kottayam-Alappuzha trip on the Kerala State Water Transport Department’s ferry usually takes a little over two hours and costs about Rs 16 depending on the route.
• The ferry terminus in Kottayam is currently at Kanjiram, about 9 km from the town centre. In Alappuzha, the terminus is in the heart of the town.
• There are several trips a day: The first scheduled Kanjiram (Kottayam)-Alappuzha trip is at 7.15 am, the last at 5.45 pm. The first Alappuzha-Kanjiram boat is at 7.30 am, the last at 5.15 pm.
• Timings can change so it’s best to check with either the station master at Kottayam (+91-94000-50371) or Alappuzha (+91-94000-50324 / +91-477-2252510)
• There are mobile phones on the Kottayam-Alappuzha ferries (+91-94000-50372/+91-94000-50373), though the crew may not answer while the boats are running.
• There are no restrooms on the ferries and you’ll have to carry your own refreshments.
• The Water Transport Department also operates ferries from Alappuzha to other destinations in the region. It also runs the ‘See Kuttanad’ service from Alappuzha for commuters and tourists. The first boat usually leaves at 5.30 am and a round trip takes about three hours. A one-way ticket for an adult on the upper deck costs Rs 80 and the lower deck Rs 30.

Kerala Tourism: The fluff diaries

If there’s no news, manufacture some. That seems to capture Kerala Tourism’s newfound approach to creating a buzz.

What other rationale could account for the press release that presumably fuelled newspaper reports that talk about how British celebrities who visited Kerala have used Twitter to create excitement about going to Kerala. For more go here, here and here.

While Kerala may, perhaps, trend on Twitter occasionally, I’m not so sure if two British ‘celebrities’ Tweeting about Kerala qualifies as a celebration of God’s Own Country’s charms. Especially as both Sadie Frost’s and Preeya Kalidas’ tweets are from almost a year ago — March and April 2011 to be exact.

So it is rather strange that these ‘celebrity’ Tweets and visits, and a bunch of others, are being tom-tommed now, several months after they happened. Intriguing too that Claudia and Gerhard Mueller are on the list of celebrity visitors to Kerala courtesy their footballer son Thomas; filial fame is transferable I guess.

Now the UK has, for years, accounted for the largest chunk of foreign tourists visiting Kerala. So it would have been pretty meaningful and, perhaps, interesting if Kerala Tourism had told a story connecting these celebrity visits and tweets with the real leg-up they gave Kerala’s tourism sector. If they had been able to say something like: ‘OK, these celebrities from Britain visited Kerala in March last year and spoke about the great time they had here. Based on those endorsements these other folks have actually visited Kerala.’

For example, Sadie Frost sent this tweet to three of her Twitter followers/friends suggesting that they holiday in Kerala. Let’s assume that at least one of them actually took her advice and visited Kerala. What a powerful story it would have been if Kerala Tourism had tracked the response that this particular tweet evoked and had been able to say: ‘Sadie Frost’s endorsement worked because “so and so” visited Kerala on her advice.’ A real life story like that would have added so much more to the Kerala Tourism brand.

Instead you have communication that seems more vapour than water. And that’s a pity for a brand that has always done things differently.

A shower of awards

For an ad that’s had lots of people taking pot-shots at it, Kerala Tourism’s new commercial, Your Moment is Waiting, has done pretty well. At least in the number of awards it has won. Nine at last count.

 Yes, I know awards don’t necessarily mean an ad campaign has worked. But then, I also believe that awards recognise and celebrate excellence. And excellence tends to go hand-in-hand with results.

After picking up a trio of PATA Gold Awards and a Das goldene Stadttor award, Your Moment is Waiting won four awards at this year’s New York Festivals. Nirvana Films, the ad film’s producer, won a bronze for cinematography and two ‘finalist’ awards for direction and original music. And Stark Communications, which conceived the ad, won a ‘finalist’ award in the travel and tourism category.

In April, Stark also won a bronze Abby Award for Your Moment is Waiting at this year’s Goafest organised by the Advertising Agencies Association of India and The Advertising Club Bombay.

And it’s not over, I suspect. I have this feeling that the film is going to get lots more recognition in the next few weeks. 

Pic courtesy Kerala Tourism

Coming home to stay

A few days ago, I took part in a discussion on tourism at the Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum. It was a small, eclectic group, and almost everyone who turned up ended up participating in the discussion.

Much was discussed, but what struck me most was a comment by Josette Rey, a Frenchwoman who lives in Fort Kochi and dabbles in tourism. The homestays that are sprouting across Kerala, she said, end up disappointing many French tourists. The French tourist tends to opt for homestays believing that they offer an immersive experience in the local culture. The tourist, she explained, believes that a homestay will offer them a slice of daily life in Kerala; an opportunity to be part of the family, to eat with the family and learn from the family. Instead the tourist most often ends up getting the equivalent of a hotel room without the amenities that normally come with a room in a hotel, she added.

Josette has a point. Over the past few years, both Kerala Tourism and India Tourism have been gung-ho about homestays — India Tourism also calls them bed and breakfasts (b&bs) which is kind of misleading as a b&b can be rather different from a homestay. Both tourism boards have even crafted elaborate systems to classify homestays based on the facilities they offer.

What none of these classification schemes has been able to certify though is the emotional ambience of the homestay. By emotional ambience, I mean things like how involved the hosts are in the operation of the homestay, how much time and effort they put into interactions with their guests and so on. Little things at first glance, but actually vital ingredients of the homestay mix.

For running a good homestay involves striking a very fine balance between giving guests a taste of local life and giving them the space and privacy they want. A balance that needs to be reworked for each set of guests.

There is, I guess, no standard formula for this and it is arguably more of an art than a science. But there are homestays in Kerala that seem to have perfected the art of personalised inn-keeping — Philipkutty’s Farm, Tranquil, Gramam and others.

In the long term though, market forces will work on homestays as much as they do on any other sector. The good ones — that meet the needs of tourists — will thrive, while the others will either limp along or disappear altogether. Meanwhile, Kerala’s homestays could perhaps pick up a lesson or two from their more successful brethren, especially on how to bring more of the ‘home’ into the ‘stay’.

Another gold…

This time it’s in Berlin. Your Moment is Waiting, Kerala Tourism’s new ad film, has won a Das goldene Stadttor or The Golden City Gate award at this year’s ITB Berlin. The awards, which are exclusively for the tourism industry, are given out every year at ITB Berlin arguably the world’s largest tourism and travel fair.

Your Moment is Waiting won the Das goldene Stadttor award in the ‘TV Cinema Spot’ category. The recognition at ITB Berlin comes just a few weeks after the film won 3 PATA Gold Awards.

More accolades, I suspect, will come the film’s way before the year is over. 

Pic courtesy Kerala Tourism

Gold

Your Moment is Waiting, Kerala Tourism’s new ad film, has won 3 PATA Gold Awards.

Not bad for a film that had people carping “This film has no soul because the soul doesn’t belong to the body.” Obviously, the PATA Gold Awards-2011 jury thought otherwise — that the film does have soul. Likewise, the jury also appears to have dismissed tales about Your Moment is Waiting being lifted from Ashes and Snow and a campaign for Mexico Tourism.

Your Moment is Waiting struck gold in the Secondary Government Destination, Travel Advertisement Broadcast Media and Public Relations categories. Kerala Tourism also won a PATA Grand Award for Kumarakom in the Environment category. And India picked up a clutch of awards this year, with cghEarth, Kuoni India, Taj Hotels and India Tourism among the winners.

Overall, great news for Kerala for the PATA Gold Awards are pretty much the industry standard. And PATA or the Pacific Asia Travel Association is, arguably, ‘the’ tourism and travel industry body for Asia-Pacific.

Old wine?

A few days ago, Kerala Tourism announced a new venture called SAPARYA. Anchored by Tourism Resorts Kerala Ltd, one of Kerala Tourism’s many satellites, the project is about ‘Synergising Actions through Participatory Approach’. From what I can gather, it seeks to put community involvement at the heart of tourism development in Kerala.

That is a very laudable objective. But most of the literature I’ve read about the venture describes it as “novel”, “pioneering” , “unique”, “the first such project in the world” and so on. These descriptions leave me faintly uncomfortable and quite puzzled.

Uncomfortable because claims about SAPARYA’s uniqueness sound hollow. Community involvement in tourism is an idea that’s been around for quite some time now. So SAPARYA is certainly not the first to venture down that road. It’s also not clear so far how this project is unique or different from similar ventures that have been launched across the world.

And I’m puzzled because I thought Kerala Tourism’s Responsible Tourism initiative that was launched with much fanfare in 2007-2008 is about involving local communities in tourism and ensuring that local communities benefit from tourism. So how does SAPARYA differ from the Responsible Tourism initiative? Or is SAPARYA replacing Kerala Tourism’s Responsible Tourism initiative? And if so, what went wrong with Responsible Tourism in Kerala?

On the whole, the new project raises lots of questions. Now if we could only get some meaningful answers.

Wondering…

...What the picture above means? To be a little more specific, why are actors Amitabh Bachchan and Mohanlal in the picture and what is it meant to do?

The picture is an ad — that appeared in newspapers on December 1 — for an event called the Grand Kerala Shopping Festival. It’s organised by the Government of Kerala and is intended to turn Kerala into a shoppers paradise that will attract tourists in droves. Launched in 2007, the event is sort of expected to do for tourism and commerce in Kerala what the Dubai Shopping Festival supposedly did for Dubai.

But coming back to the ad. Does it mean that the two actors are going to be shopping in Kerala during the festival? Or are the two characters portrayed by Mohanlal and Bachchan in the film Kandahar involved in promoting the festival? 

Or will Kerala Tourism spring a huge surprise and announce that Bachchan is going to be Kerala Tourism’s brand ambassador.

And then, in today’s papers there’s this ad (the one on the left).

I won’t comment on the grammatical challenges it poses, but it does muddy the waters and raises the question: What is it that these ads are attempting to do?

Kerala and the Big B: Cast asunder?

Just wondering what happened to the blossoming love between Amitabh Bachchan and Kerala Tourism. Love that could have led to Bachchan becoming Kerala Tourism’s brand ambassador.

For a couple of week’s in March this year, there was great excitement in the media that the Big B was all set to become the ‘face’ of Kerala Tourism. Almost as soon as it was announced, the fledgling relationship was shown a ‘red card’ of sorts by the CPM politburo. Kerala Tourism though was unruffled by the ruckus and maintained that discussion with Bachchan were still on.

Eight months on, there’s no news on the health of the relationship. Even the media seem to have forgotten it.

So was it all just a summer infatuation?

Your Moment is Waiting

I’ve seen Your Moment is Waiting thrice. And what do I say? So I’ll let the goose bumps on my arms do the talking for a moment or two.

Sensuous, exhilarating, earthy, outstanding, surreal, haunting — Kerala Tourism’s new ad film is all these. But it is so much more, much of it indescribable. To borrow from a section introduction in Bearings, a collection of poems by Karthika Nair: “The attempt to capture the kinetic in words is somewhat like freezing a raindrop in mid-air. Before it changes shape. Before it merges with the earth.”

And that is precisely what I feel as I struggle to capture in words the emotions that Your Moment is Waiting arouses.

Stark Communications has always been ahead of the curve on tourism communication. But with this film Stark and Prakash Varma have outdone themselves and taken Kerala Tourism’s brand communication to an entirely new level.

A fitting tribute to God’s Own Country.

Your moment awaits

God’s Own Country is set to stun the world, again. Your Moment is Waiting, Kerala Tourism’s new ad film will premiere in London next week and going by track records, the film should be exceptional and enchanting, subtle and sensuous.

Travel is about experiences and transformations, and Your Moment is Waiting — it seems — taps into this belief. The film talks about the transformational experiences that people from across the world go through in Kerala.

The premiere in London on Tuesday next (September 21) is expected to be a star-studded event at a hip venue. London, I guess, is a pretty obvious place for the premiere, not in the least because it is Kerala’s largest international inbound market. Following the premiere, Your Moment is Waiting will debut on the big screen during the launch of the film Eat, Pray, Love and will then start airing on television channels around the world.

Developed by the Thiruvananthapuram-based Stark Communications and directed by Prakash Varma of Nirvana Films, Your Moment is Waiting is in keeping with Kerala Tourism’s tradition of staying ahead of the curve. Kerala Tourism is, for instance, India’s first State Tourism Board to do a television commercial — the spectacular Watercolours by God, in 2000. This was followed, in 2004-05 by the more understated Life in a New Light. Both films were directed by Santosh Sivan.

What makes Your Moment is Waiting — shot in Thekkady, Kumarakom, Munnar, Thalassery and Kannur on a budget of about Rs 1 crore — especially interesting is that it has been directed by Prakash Varma who’s especially feted for the Zoo-Zoo ad films he did for Vodafone. I suspect though, that Varma will soon be equally feted for Your Moment is Waiting. Equally interesting is that music for the film has been composed and performed by Senegal’s Baaba Maal.

All in all, I can’t wait to experience Your Moment is Waiting and the outstanding campaign that, I expect, will accompany it.

Picture courtesy Kerala Tourism

Numbers of note

Kerala Tourism finally let the cat out of the bag a few days ago.

After keeping uncharacteristically quiet about its 2009 numbers for over 8 months, Kerala Tourism has now revealed that there was a decline in the number of foreign tourists who visited the State in 2009. Nothing unexpected in that, as I wrote back in March. What is mildly surprising is that total tourist arrivals to Kerala in 2009 actually appear to have gone up by 3.42 per cent. Domestic tourists, it seems, have saved the day for Kerala.

According to this report in The Hindu, Kerala’s Tourism Minister says that approximately 5.57 lakh foreign tourists visited the State last year, down by about 6.96 per cent from 2008’s 5.98 lakh international arrivals. Domestic tourist arrivals, however, grew from 75.91 lakh in 2008 to 79.13 lakh in 2009, the Minister says. And it’s these 320,000-odd domestic tourists who, perhaps, helped Kerala’s tourism industry survive the recession; at the very least, these additional domestic tourists helped the State’s tourism numbers look respectable in a recession year.

What’s intriguing about these figures though, is that in February this year The Hindu quoted the Tourism Minister as saying that Kerala had clocked a 17 per cent growth in tourist arrivals in 2009. While I understand that those were probably preliminary estimates, I am rather puzzled how — in about 7 months — a 17 per cent increase in tourist arrivals has been watered down to 3.42 per cent; a 13 percentage point variation.

Notwithstanding such number-crunching mysteries, the 2009 figures indicate that Kerala Tourism’s decision to focus on the Indian market seems to have helped. What interests me though is just how the rise in domestic tourists has affected Kerala’s tourism revenues. Has, for instance, the revenue generated by the increased inflow of domestic tourists offset the likely drop in revenue from the fall in foreign tourist arrivals?

This aspect though has really not been covered in The Hindu piece. It does say that “Total income of the State's tourism sector in 2009 was Rs 13,231 crore.” This income figure is about Rs 100 crore more than the Rs 13,130 crore Kerala earned from tourism in 2008. And as the 2009 tourism stats still do not seem to have been published — at least not on the Kerala Tourism Web site — it’s a little difficult to obtain any real insights.

The bottomline, I guess, is that we should be grateful the State’s tourism sector weathered the choppy waters of 2009. And, perhaps, we should turn to celebrating accolades such as the ‘best holiday destination in Asia’. Or rejoice at the 13.9 per cent growth in foreign tourist arrivals in the first half of this year, rather than fuss over pesky little details like tourism revenues and how it will influence the sector’s future.

Condor flies to Kerala

A few weeks ago, German airline Condor announced that it would start flying to Kerala from November this year.

Condor says it will operate one flight a week on the Frankfurt-Kochi sector. The flights will be “seasonal” and will also touch Bahrain for what I assume will be just a refuelling stop. While it’s good to hear that one more airline will start flying to Kerala from Europe, I’m not quite sure just how much of a boost this is going to give Kerala’s tourism industry.

To begin with, though Condor — owned by the Thomas Cook Group — describes itself as a “leisure airline” or a “tourism airline”, it is essentially an airline that operates charter flights. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that. What worries me is that the charter flights to Kochi are going to be only for the ‘tourism season’. As the airline itself says, the flights to Kochi are for the “winter season 2010/11”. I would have been much more excited if Condor had decided to operate flights to Kochi through the year. Of course, that’s still a possibility, but I’m not very optimistic about that happening.

Second, I’m not too sure if the Condor flight is going to add significantly to foreign tourist arrivals in Kerala. The airline intends to operate just one flight a week to Kochi. From what I can gather, the flights will start in the first week of November and end by April 1, 2011; that’s about 22 flights across five months. I understand that the airline will operate Boeing 757-300 aircraft on the Frankfurt-Kochi sector. Each of Condor’s 757-300s can seat 265 passengers. So I would imagine that we are talking about the airline carrying around 5,803 passengers from Frankfurt to Kochi over 5 months. That’s less than 1 per cent of the 598,925 foreign tourist arrivals in Kerala in 2008 (the last year for which Kerala tourism stats are available).

All this makes me wonder just how the Condor flight is going to “increase manifold” the tourism prospects of Kerala. The way I see it, at best, the Condor airlines flight to Kerala may be a pilot venture; an exploration of sorts. Whether it will yield significant dividends in the years ahead is, however, anybody’s guess.

Putting children first, always

Child abuse, particularly sexual abuse, is very often discussed only in whispers. Partly, because it is such a sensitive subject, but mostly, I suspect, because it is something society would like to pretend ‘does not happen’. And when it comes to discussing the role tourism plays in facilitating child abuse, especially the sexual abuse of children, the whispers are almost inaudible. Not surprising, perhaps, given the billions of dollars that ride on the global travel and tourism economy.

India is mostly rooted in the ‘it does not happen here’ camp on child sexual abuse; though we make the occasional empty gesture. And given that India is working very hard to position itself as a top global tourism destination, people tend to scurry for cover when you mention tourism and child abuse in the same sentence.

For several years now, there have been indications that sexual abuse of children by tourists has been spreading in India. One voice that has been speaking very strongly and loudly about the links between tourism and child abuse is the Bangalore-based Equations. Over the past decade, it has looked into child prostitution and tourism, sexual abuse of children in tourism destinations, child pornography and tourism and so on.

The results of work by groups such as Equations has been mixed. For instance, tourism as a cause for the exploitation of children was mentioned in the Goa Children’s Act 2003. However, how effective the Act has been in deterring child abuse is not clear.

Similarly, in May last year Kerala Tourism launched the ‘Kovalam Vigil’ campaign against child abuse in Kovalam, near Thiruvananthapuram. Kerala Tourism had also indicated then that it would conduct vulnerability assessments in other tourist destinations in the State and would then take the campaign across Kerala. But it appears that little progress has been made on this initiative.

So it was tremendously encouraging to read in June 23rd’s The New Indian Express that Kuoni Travel Holding — arguably the world’s largest travel company — has been quietly working against tourism-driven child abuse, including sexual abuse.

Besides being a signatory to the Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism (Child Protection Code), Kuoni is working to sensitise its customers to the issue of childe abuse by disseminating information through a flyer titled ‘Never turn a blind eye’. Equally important, it has been conducting workshops across the world to make its partners aware of “commercial sexual exploitation of children in tourism and take action against it.”

In India, the company held a couple of such workshops in Goa and Kerala last year, and according to the Indian Express report, held another one in Kochi early this month. According to the report, around 70 tourism companies that participated in the ‘closed’ workshop have decided to become signatories to the Child Protection Code and implement a series of measures against child sex tourism.

What is even more encouraging is that child protection is part of Kuoni’s Supplier Code of Conduct, and is being introduced into all its contracts with business partners and suppliers. And according to the Indian Express report, Kuoni will now do business only with hotels and tour companies that sign the Child Protection Code.

Kuoni’s determination to tackle tourism-driven child abuse head-on is heartening. Of course, it remains to be seen what happens on the ground and also whether Kuoni consistently enforces its zero-tolerance policy on child sex tourism. But the very fact that a travel industry leviathan has adopted such a policy is reason enough for other tourism and travel players, both in India and across the world, to pull up their socks and put children first, always.

Kerala and Big B: Over before it even started?

About a week ago, I wrote about Kerala Tourism’s budding relationship with actor Amitabh Bachchan. A relationship that could culminate in Bachchan signing on as an ambassador for Kerala Tourism.

But much quicker than expected, the fledgling relationship has run into some rather strong turbulence of the political kind. The CPM politburo, or many of its members, it appears, is against the idea of Bachchan being Kerala Tourism’s brand ambassador. Their objection, it seems, stems from concern about the possible implications of Bachchan promoting the Left-ruled Kerala even as he endorses BJP-ruled Gujarat.

This ‘red card’ to Bachchan has proved to be manna for Kerala’s television channels over the past 24 hours. Excitement levels ran high on some channels on the evening of March 18, as panellists debated the possible ramifications of the politburo direction, including the perceived insult to “Amit-ji”!

In the midst of all the excitement, everyone seemed to have forgotten the teeny-weeny point that Kerala Tourism and Bachchan have not yet signed on the dotted line. For that matter, they haven’t even discussed the contours of the deal yet! All that has happened is a preliminary expression of interest — from both parties — in working together. So commercial, not political, factors may yet scuttle the relationship.

Meanwhile, Kerala Tourism, it seems, is unruffled by the ruckus and is set to go ahead with its planned discussions with Bachchan. The actor, himself, was on Malayalam television earlier today saying that the ball is in the Kerala Government’s court.

The Kerala Tourism-Amitabh Bachchan courtship really does have all the makings of a Summer blockbuster!

Will Big B tie the knot with small Kerala?

We now know that actor Amitabh Bachchan loves Kerala. So much so, that he is said to be willing to become a brand ambassador for Kerala Tourism.

Bachchan apparently expressed an interest in the brand ambassador’s role a few weeks ago. Hearing this, Kerala Tourism swung into action and dashed off a letter to the actor, saying, in essence, “We’d love to discuss this with you.” And now, Bachchan has responded saying that he “would like to go ahead with the offer extended to him by the State he loves.”

It appears that this is young love; love that has blossomed in recent months. For this affection for the State was not in evidence a couple of years ago, when the same Kerala Tourism tried to get him, and daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai, to promote God’s Own Country. But then, love is a strange emotion and it can strike like a bolt from the blue!

So is it a done deal? Can we start distributing the payasam to celebrate the consummation of a beautiful relationship between Kerala and Bachchan? Perhaps not. For all Bachchan has done is say that he’s willing to talk about the contours of such a relationship; work out the fine points of the pre-nup. And that’s where the catch lies.

For a moment, forget about whether having Bachchan as a brand ambassador makes marketing sense for Kerala Tourism. Also forget any political undertones that could be attached to such an association. Instead, consider whether Kerala Tourism will be willing to fork out the couple of crores required to get the actor on board.

This story in Business Today magazine says that in the year ended September 2008 AB Corp, Bachchan’s company, clocked revenues of Rs 22.45 crore from endorsements by the actor. It also adds that in 2008 he endorsed 19 brands.

From these figures it is difficult to estimate the exact value of each endorsement deal and for how long each deal is valid. It would, however, be safe to estimate that the value of each Bachchan endorsement ranges from around Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 2.5 crore; perhaps a little more in some cases or for multi-year deals. Figures that people working in marketing and branding agree with.

So for arguments sake, let’s assume that Kerala Tourism will have to fork out around Rs 2 crore for having Bachchan as brand ambassador for a year. Now, that’s about 8 per cent of Kerala Tourism’s marketing budget for fiscal 2011. In addition, I guess there will be expenses — flight tickets, hotel accommodation and so on — to be met for each appearance he makes as Kerala Tourism’s brand ambassador. So the final figure could be a bit more. The mandarins of Kerala Tourism will have to take the call on Bachchan’s fee, based on the perceived return on investment.

Of course, these back-of-the-envelope calculations could be totally off. More important, Bachchan could agree to work for a vastly reduced fee or even no fee given his love for Kerala! Now that would be a really great deal for Kerala Tourism. Perhaps like its deal with actor Jayaram to be the brand ambassador for the Vazhiyoram project to build “wayside amenities” or travellers’ pit stops along major highways in the State. A venture that still has some distance to go.

Meanwhile, Kerala waits with bated breath to break out the bubbly when — no ifs and buts here —Bachchan says: “I do.” And how can he not, for Kerala is ‘the State he loves’ and Kerala loves him too!