Nodes to Note
Spotlight Issue, January 22 2020
Maneesha Panicker — Kayal Island Retreat
I am beginning to see a pattern in the kind of travels I enjoy and seek out. Small businesses over large corporations, boutique hotels over hotel chains, small walking trails over larger tour groups … I want to feel the pulse of the places and people through intimate experiences rather than the commercial experiences that are marketed for tourists. I know that I am not alone with these preferences. There is a growing market for the so called “conscious traveller” and one cannot escape the market forces that have caught on this rising demand.
Sustainable tourism. Eco- friendly. Responsible Travelling. These are big words that are becoming more common with marketing — not just in the tourism sector, but pretty much everywhere else, from fashion to food production. What do they actually mean? I think it is a good sign that we want to know, and we care enough to think about the repercussions of our privileges and choices. This is such a tricky topic and there are so many hidden costs that one really can never be too “woke” or claim to know enough, and so I definitely am not going to try to explain these terms. In the tourist — host country relationship, there are incredible opportunities for mutual exchange and benefit. At the same time, there are real costs to the environment, local communities and livelihood when mass tourism tilts the power balance and becomes exploitative rather than collaborative.
In this issue, I want to introduce you to a person who seems to imbibe these terms through her work.
Kayal Island Retreat is snuggled in Kakkathuruthu — a small backwater island in Kerala. You feel instantly at ease when the boat takes you from the city, across the waters and onto this property. Time seems to stand still. You witness nature at its finest without any obstruction. There really isn’t a need for anything else when you have a backdrop as gorgeous as this one here.
Maneesha intuitively felt it too when she first laid eyes on this piece of land. She knew that she had to do something with the space, but the idea to turn it into what it is today took shape over time.
“ To figure out what I wanted to do and what I wanted it to look like took about 2 years…”
Thinking about aesthetics. Beauty lies in the details.
She started with 2 bungalows as she knew she wanted to keep the intimacy of the space for its visitors. It now has a maximum occupancy rate of 4 rooms/8 persons, with an outdoor space that functions as a multi purpose gathering area for guests, a newly erected performance art space and a kitchen shed that extends into a dining area. It really feels like you’re stepping into a home where every detail is tastefully thought through.
She seems to have a passion for salvaging discarded items and giving them a lease of life. Every piece in Kayal — from it’s wooden door frames to the furniture has a story to tell.
So there are people who are in the business of buying old houses. They demolish everything and rebuild from scratch. When the guy came with the bulldozer and brought down this old house in Palakkad, I walked around and picked out these beautiful windows and wooden doors that you see in Kayal. This table we are using, this is wood from my father’s home…
The artwork that is featured in every room and around the property are photographs that were taken off the island and its people.
Making space for communities to mix
The guests. The staff on the resort. The people living on the island. These are the 3 main communities who interface with one another through Kayal. Maneesha is sensitive to these relationships and has intentionally created space for the communities to get to know one another respectfully.
Most of the staff working on Kayal live on the island. She recognized the difficulties of finding employment in mainland for locals and also the need to secure their trust if she were to establish a resort on the island.
The people who work here live here. For them, they don’t have to go outside for a job. For us, they are really close by and we can rely on them. It is a win win.
Kayal has injected new ideas and opportunities for the local community at large, instead of taking away from their existing livelihood. If she takes a walk in the village, people stop by and chat. They know her by name as she’s transited from an outsider to an insider over the past 7 years. Earning trust and building relationship with the locals is important to her. She finds joy in providing platforms to connect the locals with the tourists. For example, one of the staff’s daughter sings beautifully and has performed for the guests in Kayal.
We get such an interesting mix of people from around the world visiting us on the island too. I want to be able to find a way to incorporate some of that into what we do. This place is such, it inspires creativity and I’ve had guests say they want to contribute — either by writing about us or by working with us to bring art (performance or visual) to the island. Since we got started, I’ve not had to do any paid advertisement. If this place moves them, they are always referring people…and that keeps us going.
Curating experiences
I grew up in the backwaters, what I experienced as a child, I try to bring to others. The boating without the motor, walking through the island…those are memories for me.
Curating experiences for guests can be a tricky thing. Tourism could easily slide into commercial marketing, where experiences are marketed as “authentic” and seen as a transaction on demand between locals and tourists. For example, travel companies could pay the locals to “stage” meetings where tourists are welcomed into their home and get an insider peak into their lives. The transaction of money already disrupts the power balance between the guests and locals, hence cutting off potential for any genuine relationships to be formed. Boundaries need to be respected when any community is interfacing with the other.
Maneesha is upfront about managing her guests’ expectations.
I do not promise that they would get to see fishermen catching fish with their bare hands, or toddy tappers climbing the trees or whatever they come hoping to see that is unique to the island. If they happen to see the locals doing that, that’s their luck, but it is not something we focus on.
Her approach towards hospitality, respect for the local communities and her creativity in sharing and integrating talent into the island gives us much to think about in how we approach travel. Staying on Kayal Island has definitely expanded my views on what sustainable tourism can look like. I think more about what we can do to add value and bring a piece of ourselves to the people and places we meet, as tourists and guests.
If we choose to, there are so many possibilities for travel to be more than just a transaction.
Travel is more than the seeing of sights, it is the change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”
— Miriam Beard
For more information on Kayal Island Retreat: https://www.kayalislandretreat.com/explore-kerala/
Nodes to Note is a platform that houses the stories of people who have gone beyond themselves to create and inspire communities. Follow us for monthly issues of interviews with people who understand the power of collective and are living their passion and purpose.
