Kumbalangi may lose sheen due to poor government support

Many activities were launched to woo visitors to India’s first model tourism village

At a time when the State government has expressed its keenness to have a tourism locale in every panchayat, the fear is rife that Kumbalangi, India’s first model tourism village located in the suburbs of Kochi, may lose its sheen due to inadequate governmental support. The innumerable ethnic and sustainable tourism activities launched in the fishing hamlet, which helped it attain global fame, might fade into oblivion if the poor support continued, said Muralee Menon, former director of Hydrel Tourism, who readied an action plan and helped implement it in Kumbalangi. Shortly after it was declared a model tourism village in 2003, surviving competition from 37 village tourism initiatives from across India, tourists began thronging the locale surrounded by backwaters, where the iconic Chinese fishing nets come alive after dusk, to participate in experiential-tourism activities and to savour the ethnic seafood cuisine. They included backpackers and high-end tourists who arrived in cruise ships that called at Kochi.