Branded touch to Responsible Tourism

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As a part of scaling up the Responsible Tourism (RT) movement in the state, the tourism department in association with Kudumbashree has decided to brand handicrafts and food products created by local RT units in the four tourism destinations of Wayanad, Kumarakom, Thekkady and Kovalam. Handicrafts will be brought under the rubric ‘Charutha’ and food products will be branded ‘Naatturuchi’. Handicrafts sold under the brand name ‘Charu-tha’ will be the quintessential Kerala art works like houseboats, Kathakali forms and elephants.

However, slight design variations will be applied to give these traditional craft works a transformed look. One of the designs, for instance, has the houseboat forming the handle of a showcase spoon. Local artisans were identified in each of the four tourism destinations and given training in value addition, a top Kudumbashree official said. “The products are intended for a high-end market,” he said. “The objective is to increase the returns to the local community from responsible tourism.” As for the food products, mainly curry powders, they will be packaged in standardised covers. “We are in the process of zeroing in on the right design for the package,” he said.

Curry powders developed by local Kudumbashree units are already popular with hotels and resorts. “But our strategy is to make them available in the open market too, just like any other branded product,” the official said. The flip side of branding is that it will push up the cost of RT products. “Still we are going ahead with the market positioning strategy as it would give our products more acceptability,” the Kudumb-ashree official said. Branding is the result of the realisation that RT units cannot depend on the tourism industry alone to survive. “Tourism is a seasonal activity. The only way to provide a regular source of income would be to market the products in the open market,” the official said.