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Penchant for serene whiff
In interactive mood.
HOTELIERS IN the city have a genuine cause for heaving a sigh of relief. It is because the tourist inflow to Madurai during this season is not that bad as they had feared it to be in bitter anticipation of the `September 11 aftermath'.
The Tourism Department and the hoteliers alike are quite aware of the fact that the tourists, who visit Tamil Nadu, normally make it a point to hop down to Madurai, thanks to its projection as the seat of Sangam Literature, cradle of Tamil culture or the symbolisation of civilization.
Naturally, it would make any person curious, more so the tourists. The foreign visitors appear to know it well that the native art forms can strike an original chord only when it is close to the roots. And that draws them to the virtual capital of south Tamil Nadu in large numbers.
In general, by their own admission, their visit here is borne out of a desire to have a pristine insight into the culture and not at all in expectation of `five star' comforts. The hoteliers appear to have taken the cue.
Traditional trappings.
It had manifested in the activation of Travel Club, comprising owners and top-rung managers of professionally managed hotels and tour and travel operators, with the onset of 2002. It is, in fact, their collective realisation of the necessity for taking the foreigners to the villages that made them organise high-profile programmes at Ayilangudi and Alanganallur, in connection with the Pongal festivities.
And the thinking of Travel Club was right. The tourists evinced interest in anything and everything associated with the tradition and culture. Be it by participating in the folk performances or retaining the honour of garlands for lengthy durations or mingling with the local crowd or wearing traditional dresses and dining too with traditional trappings, the foreign guests were enthusiastically at everything. As far as the Travel Club was concerned, it wanted to wean away its programmes from the ambit of the Tourism Department, to avoid the embarrassment of the inauguration and valedictory programmes with drab speeches by politicians and bureaucrats running into hours. So, it directly immersed the tourists into the sea of folk festivities at Ayilangudi village.
Now is the time for them to sharpen their approach to draw tourists for the Chitrai festival. Already, the Travel Club has entered into an understanding with the Kerala-based Haute Club and there is a contemplation to combine the tourism spots of Kerala and Tamil Nadu for the purpose of offering package tours. Nevertheless, the foreign tourists keep streaming in, says Raman Rajkumar, General Manager, Hotel Madurai Park Inn.
The reasoning of G. Vasudevan of the Travel Club is that the tourists can no longer be expected to remain content with mere visits to the temples or witnessing the architectural marvels alone. For the Travel Club, the Ayilangudi experiment turned out to be a sound beginning.
They are raring to go further in hitting at innovations to appeal to the instinct of the tourists in a better manner.
Natural comfort.
The Tourism Department is also keeping pace. Its programme, for the foreign tourists, as part of the Pongal celebrations was also a big draw. It began with the dance festival organised within the premises of the Sri Meenakshi Temple.
At Thethoor village, people from different corners of the globe like Israel, Holland, United Kingdom, Korea and Japan had assembled, to enjoy each moment of the whiff of rural pleasantness.
Some even tried their hands with the instruments churning out folk music while a few others wanted to conform to the rhythmic movements of the `karagam' and `oyilattam'.
By R. Krishnamoorthy
Photos: K. Ganesan
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Life
Bangalore
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