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THE lush green Kodagu district, stretching across the southern part of Karnataka bordering on Kerala, with its magnificent mountain rangers, flourishing coffee estates as well as cascading streams and lilting brooks, is considered a veritable showroom of nature. Because of its mild and salubrious climate, Kodagu, also called Coorg, is known as the ‘Scotland of India.’ Not surprisingly then, in recent years, Kodagu is emerging as a major, unconventional tourist destination. According to tourism industry sources Kodagu has the potential to rival Goa and Kerala as a budget-travel destination. An interesting fallout of the increasing tourist flow to this beautiful region is the steady and silent growth of homestays. The evolving concept of homestay, while offering an affordable choice to the tourists, also puts negligible pressure on the local resources. As such it can be a major contributor to the promotion of sustainable, people-friendly and responsible tourism. It also enables the tourists to savour the local culture with a sense of total involvement. The expansion of homestays in Kodagu has been attributed to the progressively declining returns from coffee cultivation, which has nudged many coffee estate owners to promote home stays that need little investment. Many traditional coffee growers in Kodagu own huge mansions built in the colonial style of architecture. With a little fine-tuning these traditional bungalows are transformed into an affordable hospitality zone. Last year alone around 70,000 tourists to Kodagu opted for homestays. According to Karnataka tourism industry sources, there are more than 500 homestays spread across Kodagu. The home stays in Kodagu have been classified as ‘silver’ and ‘gold’ depending upon the ambience, type of facilities and range of services offered. Tata Coffee Ltd, the largest coffee plantation company in Asia, has not remained immune to the "moolah of homestay business". It has already converted a few of mansions under its ownership into homestay locations. In the neighbouring Kerala as well, many old style houses, known for their vast space and architectural grandeur, have already been converted into centres of homestay. The Government of Karntaka, which has already come out with a policy on homestays, hopes that popularising these would obviate the need to put up big and costly hotels that could easily disrupt the serenity and eco-system of many of scenic tourist spots in the state. As the experience in Goa has shown, wealthy foreign tourists can exert a negative impact on the immediate environment, local culture and turn tourism of the place into an unsustainable venture. Incidentally, the emphasis on developing tourism in Goa has been through the creation of five star hotels and motels, irrespective of the threat they pose to the local environment. Dr Claude Alvares, a well-known thinker and writer, has expressed concern over the ecological degradation and cultural corruption brought about by the proliferation of star hotels along the sea front of Goa. However, those associated with tourism industry in Goa say that anti-tourism movement in the state is the handiwork of vested interests, uninterested in Goa’s all-round development. Interestingly, island of Bali in Indonesia, which had not long back suffered heavily on account of the blind promotion of ‘unsustainable tourism", has successfully neutralised the negative and disturbing fallouts of tourism by reorienting the its entire tourism industry around homestays. Foreign tourists not interested in staying in costly hotels offering stereotyped luxuries are accommodated in individual Balianese homes. These homestays are quite comfortable and inexpensive. Moreover, here hosts act as guides, explaining Balinese customs and culture to the foreign tourists. Against this backdrop, the familiar cry over the threat to the local culture from the permissiveness of Western tourists is dying down. Today nobody in Bali is worried that tourism will destroy their unique way of life and traditions. Unfortunately, in Goa, the concept of homestays has failed to pick up as it did in Bali. With the overseas tourist inflow into India expected to register an annual growth of 25 per cent, there is an immediate and serious need to promote responsible tourism. While eco tourism and adventure tourism have been in vogue for many years now, people-friendly tourism is yet to become an inseparable part of the burgeoning hospitality industry in the country. Of course, Rajasthan has come a long way in exposing foreign tourists to its rural life, folk arts, traditional food as well as its music and dance. Long before, Rajasthan had emerged as a major tourist destination for foreign travellers visiting India, Haryana had promoted tourism in a big way be setting up "highway resorts and motels". Here again the idea was to make tourism a sustainable operation. Indeed, India would succeed in turning its tourism sector into a sunrise industry only by giving a "people-friendly and sustainable" touch to the hospitality industry.
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