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Kerala Houseboat industry to tap MICE
by Juhan Samuel

      Alleppy(Alappuzha): Kerala houseboat "Kettuvallam" is becoming a leisure tourism product, captivating big corporate houses, business centres and focussed on a high-net worth. Experts are anticipating a boom in the houseboat industry and thus promoting MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions) tourism here. The local houseboat industry's diversification in focus over big companies is taking place due to many corporate houses and companies selecting houseboats as a venue to conduct board meetings, conferences and official get to gathers in place of indoors.

     After successfully marketing houseboats and backwaters as a tourism product of the State, specialists in the houseboat industry are making endeavours to boost the MICE tourism, which, they believe, have a big potential in the tourism sector. "Companies used to enquire a lot for our houseboats to conduct large meeting of more than 100 pax and our houseboats were meant for a stay only, so we decided to make a separate boat for this purpose," said Ms.Tintu Pulickattil, one of the directors of the Pulickattil Tourism Group After launching its first floating convention boat, the group has come out with another novel idea to develop fully air-conditioned floating convention boat with all the modern facilities provided on board, comparable with any star convention centre. The groups' first convention boat attracted big multinational companies in the banking, IT and pharmaceutical sectors. On board, a minimum of 15 pax to maximum of 150 pax conference can be arranged and has rooms on the lower deck to accommodate the higher officals or their accompaniying persons. According to the company officials, a minimum of 100 to 150 pax would cost rupees 40,000 to 50,000 per day inclusive of on board food and all the facilities like DVD player, projector, screen, mike, mobile, internet besides other things. "This a good option for the corporate having their official meeting or conferences on board a houseboat with their directors or having a secret get together out of the office space at the same time enjoying the beauty of backwaters and that too with a floating experience, said Mr. Peter J. Leitgeb, President of Leela venture Ltd. Leela Group has already tied up with the tourism company to send its future bookings related to business meetings of corporate giants. Kerala Tourism is aggressively marketing the MICE circuit. For some time now, the State government had been promoting MICE tourism by entering into joint ventures with private players. Kettuvallams meaning stitched boats are 70 feet long, made with wooden planks, joined and stitched together with coir (coconut Fibre) ropes and painted on the outside with cashew nut shell oil or fish oil.

      A distinctive feature of the Kettuvallam (Houseboats) is the design suggesting the possible Chinese influence. These Kettuvallams (Houseboats) were used for transporting huge quantities of heavy materials from one place to other. In certain areas, these houseboats are still used for transferring coconut husk, sand and other goods. In earlier days, since all places were not well connected by roads, houseboats were the main source of transportation through the Kerala backwaters. It took long journeys ranging from five to six days, sometimes weeks even to transport things. Kerala backwaters are a unique nature and are found nowhere else in the world. Backwaters are a network of lakes, canals and estuaries and deltas of forty-four rivers that drain into the Arabian Sea. Backwaters of Kerala are a self-supporting Eco- system teeming with aquatic life Over 900 km of this labyrinthine water world is navigable. Today, these houseboats are a major tourist attraction not only for domestic tourists but also for the foreign tourists who never miss a chance to take a 24-hour in the backwaters of Kerala.
-Feb 23,  2007

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