Travel Mart ends with a vow to keep tourist destinations clean

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The 7th edition of Kerala Travel Mart (KTM) came to a close on Sunday with a resolution to make nine important tourist destinations in the state clean in a year. It also identified hartals as the bane of tourism growth but was at a loss on how to tackle them.

Addressing the valedictory session of KTM, tourism secretary Suman Billa said the main complaint he heard from tour operators was about the garbage mounds in the state.

“The concept of cleanliness was different for a foreigner and a native and it was time we took steps to bridge this gap,” he said. “I hope the new initiative of the tourism department to tie up with the industry and local communities will give dividends.”

Mr Billa said the tourism industry had been growing at an attractive rate of 15 per cent for the last 15 years but “we should not lapse into complacency by refusing to tackle fundamental issues that include hartals”.

“We still only have 15,000 classified rooms and it is time we made efforts to increase the numbers,” he said. But Mr Billa warned against calls to change Ker-ala to the demands of the market.

“The market came to Kerala in the past bec-ause the state kept its identity. There is no need to change it.”

Tourism director Rani George said the nine destinations that would get a facelift through the cleanliness drive from October 2 were Kovalam, Varkala, Alappuzha, Kumarakom, Munnar, Fort Kochi, Marine Drive, Thekkady and Wayanad.

Mussel-man steals the limelight

The lives of about 6,000 small farmers, mostly women, have changed with the initiative of G.S. Gul Mohammed of Padanna in Kasargod who pioneered mussel farming in the backwaters.

Usually caught from the wild, he grew mussels successfully in the backwaters with the production touching 25,000 tonnes last year.

Mr Gul had tried his hand at shrimp farming after working some 20 years abroad. He had initiated the Green Mussels Farmers Society with farmers in the vicinity in 1996. The mussels cultivation flourished and the society has been receiving orders from different parts of the country.

In fact, his method of breeding mussels has attracted people from far-off places to the hamlet. Small ro-pes are wound around a strong string on which are placed a few mussel seeds and bound by a cloth. These are knotted to a raft and left hanging in the backwaters. Slowly, the cloth disintegrates and the mussels grow feeding on little organisms. From his first harvest of just one tonne, it has now reached 25,000 tonnes.

To supplement this and ensure better income for the farmers, he launched his tourism venture Oyster Opera, a theme village involving members of the local community.