“Incredible India Second International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations” organized jointly by Kerala Tourism and International Centre for Responsible Tourism (India), with India Tourism as partner, is, according to the organizers, a key global initiative for all its stakeholders to discuss and debate important developments in the tourism industry. The “efforts” of Kerala Tourism in the direction of practicing responsible tourism will also be explored in the conference.

But there is a glaring mismatch between the way the conference agendas are being set and the loud promises of responsibility the organizers pretend to uphold. This elitist event, on the other hand,is carefully planned to agressively push for a neo liberal agenda, sideline local community representation and silence the voices of genuine stakeholders.

The registration fee for the conference itself is a testimony for this argument. Even the reduced fee is equivalent to Indian Rupees 5,000 (approximately GBP 63), which is still beyond the reach of many local ‘stakeholders’ (forget about the image of India as a new economic power and its GDP growth). This conference is not inclusive and accessible to most of the local stakeholders and civil society organizations in Kerala. The list of accommodation facilities available for the participants is mostly star hotel category and big players (Some of them are not affordable for even for the foreign delegates).

The programme schedule of the conference advertised “Mararikulam as an emerging beach destination”. But the present reality in this area shows that the conference organizers are apathetic to the socio-cultural and economic impacts of tourism on local communities in Mararikkulam. While they say “Mararikulam is about one local entrepreneur kick starting a destination. It is also about the emerging opportunities for the local community”, the experience of the local community is quite different. Tourism in this area has caused a real estate boom and the local entrepreneur mentioned has set a trend which resulted in market induced displacement of fisher folk from the area. The people who sold their land and moved away from the coast have found themselves alienated in the new environment which demands total change to their centuries’ old practice of living and with no financial benefit since the prices have sky rocketed 2 - 5 kilometers inward as well, due to the new demand.

The way the tourism activities are spanning out in Mararikulam is going to be detrimental to the local population in particular. Money is being promoted as an incentive and attraction to brainwash the minds of coastal people marginalized by fear of the vagaries of nature, inconsistent income availability from their livelihood and their poverty to sell their land close to the beach at a very high price.

Tenson, a 52 year old local fisherman had stayed along the coast of Mararikulam North all his life and he owned 20 cent property close to the beach. He recently sold his land to real estate brokers acting as binami for Tourism lobby after 38 people came to his house together to convince him to sell his property ”How can a poor fishermen like me having little exposure and knowledge of outside world and negotiation skills resist the convincing tactics of 38 people for three and half hours. They made me agree to sell the land and gave me advance on the spot” He asked with tears.

“I wanted to return back the advance and get out of the agreement. But even after continuous perusal they did not turn up for six months which was the period in which I could walk out of the agreement returning the advance. So after 6 months I finally had to relent to transfer my property into their hands” he explained.

Lal Koyilparambil, state president of Kerala Swathanthra Matsya Thozhilali Federation pointed out that “The privatisation of public land had already taken place by the player who has promoted Marari as a ‘fishing village virgin beach destination’. The agitation by local people resulted in the Revenue department of Kerala Government having to send a special task force to reclaim the public land”.

It is important to see the contradictions in the present tourism policies and legislation of the Kerala Tourism, which are not to be addressed at the conference. The Kerala Tourism (Conservation and preservation of Tourism Area) Act 2005 is just one example. This act is curtailing many of the very important constitutional powers of the Local Self Governments (LSG) and cutting the scope of local participation in the decision making and implementation level. This act is suggesting Special Tourism Zones, concentrating all the powers to the state level bureaucratic committee in which there is no representation of elected representatives. The withdrawal of this particular legislation is the long standing demand of the Kerala civil society.

The website of the conference says that Kerala, dubbed ‘God’s own country’, “has long been hailed as a leading example in responsible tourism, an image which Kerala’s Department of Tourism has been keenly promoting for a number of years”. In reality, however, most of the tourism development in Kerala is neither socially responsible nor environmentally friendly. The industry’s rapid and unregulated growth, facilitated by anti-people, weak policy and lack of enforcement of existing legislation, is leading to the social and economic marginalization of local communities, destruction of natural resources and the environment. The violations of the Coastal Regulation Zone notification by hotels and resorts are rampant in the state.

The current discussions strangely identified “local sourcing” as a major issue. Kerala is a well known consumer state importing major portion of food grains, vegetables and diary products from its neibouring state like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. For e.g. the current shortage in milk procurement in Kerala is estimated at 3 lakh (0.3 million) liters per day. So it is illogical to say that the producers need a tourism market to cater their marketing requirements. And we should consider the vulnerable nature of tourism before promoting such a dependency for the poor farmers.

Neither the conference nor the Responsible Tourism initiative in the state addresses any of the serious problems of the “Kerala model of tourism development’ in its agenda. At the same time, this ill affected model demonstrates how unregulated and weak policies are facilitated unsustainable tourism development in the state which alienated local population especially marginalized from their peaceful life and livelihood options.

This shows that there is no paradigm shift in the way Kerala is developing its tourism sector. The current discussions are just a hype to change the fading images of the Kerala tourism and portray it as a responsible destination in the international market. But the organizers should remember that they are also using people’s tax money for organizing such a conference.

The concerns of Kerala civil society are not on the conference agenda and neither are they likely to be addressed during the package tours for participants (Pre and Post Mart Tours) advertised on the conference website. Unless they are addressing these concerns and learn from the realities, this will remain just as an occasion for “Irresponsible International Conference Tourism in Kerala” and better business for the tour operators and hotels involved.