While things are eventually beginning to look bright for the tourism sector, a combination of factors ranging from the government’s new liquor policy to avian influenza had ensured a bleak start to the tourism season for homestays.

Though the liquor policy stands amended with tourism being cited as a pivotal factor for the government’s rethinking on the issue and the anxiety over avian influenza well behind, the Kerala Homestays and Tourism Society (Kerala-HATS), a consortium of homestay providers, says the damage had already been done pegging the drop in business during October-November at 30 per cent compared to the same period previous year.

“The liquor policy had almost completely driven away the corporate conferences. This has been a big blow since participants of these conferences used to avail of the services of homestays to get a feel of the local culture and cuisine,” M.P. Sivadattan, director, Kerala-HATS told The Hindu.

Used to a few beers or a couple of drinks, which are almost a part of their normal lives, it was not easy to convince foreign tourists the observation of dry day on Sundays. They simply couldn’t understand it and there were instances when they even turned furious, he said.

Hardly had the homestays recovered from that blow did another one landed over them in the form of avian influenza. The message that had gone out was alarmist that almost made it look like the State was in the grip of a major epidemic. That was reason enough for health conscious foreign tourists to skip Kerala, he said.

Mr. Sivadattan said that even in the case of the liquor policy, things were blown out of proportion. “The impression created was that liquor was not at all available in the State,” he said.

(You need to login first to read complete news).
New User? Register for FREE!
» Back to Travel News