Cheap labour costs Kerala tourism big

KOCHI: North Indians and those from the North-East are increasingly replacing local people in the jobs in the tourism sector with the local and outside tour operators preferring them due to their lower cost compared to local ones, but this is said to be affecting the services offered. Now local tour guides are also losing jobs on account of this. “The hotels are now deploying North-Indians and those from the north-east on a large scale and the situation in the house boat sector is also not getting any different. There is hardly any care for quality in these two and hence tourists are not getting the best experience also. In the long run this will affect the tourism industry in the state,” said a tourism sector employee from here.

He said that tour guides are a very specialty area where now the same is replicated because of low cost of the north-Indians and those from the north-east. “They usually learn the details searching Google and are in no position to explain the finer details of a tourist spot or local specialty.  But the tour operator has no qualms in employing such people who are at a loss to explain several things to the tourists. The quality of tourism offered is hence suffering,” said the employee.

In the latest instance a 10 day yoga tour was conducted by a tour operator here employing a guide for just one day.  “The tourism sector offers jobs only for six months and it is for the government to intervene and ensure jobs for the local people,” the employee said. “There is another disturbing trend of tour operators letting shoppers highjack tourists where the guides take the tourists to these shops than to sightseeing,” he said.