Home >> News & Events >> Plantations turn Commodity tourism destinations

Is the Free Independent Traveller (FIT) bored with the beaches, historical monuments, backwaters, places of worship, wild life, water theme parks and heritage sites? Eco-tourism, a strange concoction of wild life, bio-diversity and trekking is also passé, industry doubts.

The tourism industry’s quest to provide more value and experience to FITs  is now focused on Plantation Tourism. Promoters say it is all for sustainability of plantations, educative value and supporting the local community.

Gul Mohammed, a farmer at a remote village in north Kerala’s Kasargod district, demonstrated how fishing can become a tourism theme by converting fishermen’s huts into ethnic home stays. This month’s cover story is on a fast growing sector called
Commodity Tourism, where fishing, tea, coffee, cardamom, wines or any commodity becomes a great resort theme has largely evolved out of innovative skills of entrepreneurs from hospitality and commodity business.

Properly regulated, commodity tourism can help both commodities and tourism sector. Many states are yet to identify its potential and some which has done are yet to showcase it. India is an agrarian country and nothing sells more than greenery to the tourists already bored with in the middle of concrete jungles.