The rush of tourists that one usually witnesses in December is not seen these days at Photo Point or other spots in the tea gardens of Munnar, one of the hottest tourist destinations in Kerala. A knick-knack seller there wears a gloomy look as he sits before his stall. “This is perhaps the best season weather-wise and worst season businesswise in my 12 years of curio-selling,” he says.
last weekend, a tourist from the US made news by literally running away from a Munnar restaurant without paying the bill after having lunch. When the hotel workers caught him after a chase, he told them the truth: He had no cash with him and had been starving for two days. The restaurant owner simply let him go.
Kerala’s September-to-March tourism season reaches it real peak with the second week of December and the one-month period till the end of New Year fortnight used to bring the year’s briskest business but a highly disappointing slowdown has gripped all fronts of the tourism sector leading to huge losses in revenues and job days, thanks to the currency demonetisation.
According to businessmen in the sector and sources in Kerala Tourism, the arrival of tourists–both foreign and domestic–has dropped by a minimum of 25 per cent leading to a proportionate fall in revenues in the sector. This is just a rough estimate based on the experience till date but the losses could grow as cancellations of booking are continuing, they say.
“The slowdown has hit the sector from Kovalam in the south to Bekal in the north and Cherai in the west to Thekkady in the east. The cancellation rate in my own hotel has been 30 percent in the past two weeks. It could still go up. I will be able to tell you about the actual loss anticipation by the end of the month,” said the chief operations officer of a three-star hotel in Kumily.
M Vijayakumar, chairman of the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation, said the slowdown in the tourism sector at this time could even affect the GDP of the State. “Almost ten percent of the State’s GDP is coming from tourism. The negative effects of demonetization will continue till the end of the season’s peak. It could seriously hit the State’s growth for this fiscal and perhaps in the next as well,” he said.
According to Jomon, president of the Houseboat Operators’ Association, the sector used to have 100 percent occupancy in December but booking has already fallen below 70 percent for this month. “Booking for January is yet to climb above 30 percent. As this is not a problem that would end in another month, we are sure to lose a large part of business,” says Jomon.
Most foreign tourists do not have sufficient currency with them as exchange centres are unable to meet the demand, getting cash from banks is a herculean task and ATMs provide almost no relief, say travel agents. Squabbles between tourists and shop owners who refuse to card payment are a usual sight in places like Fort Kochi, Alappuzha and Kovalam.
Unlike in many other states, tourism is the means of life even for common people in several Kerala villages and the downturn hit them as well. Saramma, a 55-year-old woman selling ethnic delicacies like Kappa-Meen curry (tapioca and fish curry) to foreign tourists in Pulinkunnu in scenic Kuttanad, says she has not been making even Rs 100 a day for the past three weeks.
A travel company owner in Kochi said that hundreds of job days had already been lost in the tourism sector due to the cash crunch and job losses could continue till the currency situation stabilizes. “I won’t blame the hotel or houseboat owners. They are being forced to request the workers to go on leave as business is extremely dull,” he pointed out.