Tour operators Dan Gueizellar and Girish V launched ‘Good Morning Kochi’, with the sole purpose of giving a guest in the city a new experience and to engage him/her for more than a day here. Curated thoughtfully, the product takes guests on a cycling tour of Kochi as it wakes up. Sold directly to the guest, it is finding takers. Dan and Girish, partners of Raw Adventures and Happy Camper, have been in the industry for close to 20 years.
“Of late, Kochi has been reduced to just an exit and entry point for travellers to Kerala. We need to buck this trend. The city has plenty to offer and guests can be here for many days, enjoying different experiences. This will mean revenue generation for all stakeholders,” says Girish.
The tourism industry is fighting hard to overcome the setback caused from last year’s floods and the Nipah scare. Though the city is reinventing itself, the picture in Fort Kochi remains gloomy.
“We are now witnessing the shortest possible tourist season in the country. It begins mid November and ends mid February. Footfalls have come down and redundancy of homestays, hotels, cafes, auto rickshaws and shops is leaving people with very little revenue. It is important to keep guests here longer than their half-a-day schedule,” says Dan.
“Unlike other sea-side towns, we don’t have much of a beach here. There is no night life either, so guests prefer to move on, after a half-day tour of Mattancherry and Fort Kochi. Most go for the houseboat trip to Alappuzha or to the hills of Munnar.”
The two, after researching the stories around Fort Kochi, brought out a book, Fraternal Kochi , with data of the different communities found in the area. They crafted tours like Village Rubble that is about discovering the fishing village of Chellanam and a Blue Bus tour that takes the guest around the city in a local mode of transport in a bid to engage them deeper in the culture of the land. “We throw in things like coffee at the heritage Indian Coffee House, a lunch at a farm, visit to local reading rooms and such.”
Gopinath Parayil of Blue Yonder, says, “If carefully curated, Fort Kochi is a destination for more than a week. Beyond the typical historic sites, Fort Kochi combined with Mattancherry is a cultural cauldron. Where else in Kerala can you trace such a large number of communities in such a tiny space? But to share this, you need passionate story tellers. A glaring vacuum that we see in the tourism industry. It’s high time the industry moved beyond typical guides and look within the communities. There are knowledgeable homemakers, students, artists and people from various backgrounds who are more than happy to share their knowledge and at the same time earn extra source of income.”
Experiential travel outfitter Maneesha Panicker, of Silk Route Escapes offers a two-day immersive experience of the area, that includes walking the streets, stopping by to sample a bread-cake brought in by the Dutch, taste sweet treats of the Gujaratis, listen to the kutcheris of the Tamil Brahmins, or stop to listen to a practice session by a troupe that plays old Hindi and Malayalam songs. A stop and shop break at the avant garde design stores that dot the landscape is also included.
These innovative ways are presenting a Kochi that one did not know yet.
