“Seeing a foreigner used to be a matter of curiosity for me and my family, until we started receiving tourists in our home through Kabani”

“I could never have imagined communicating and interacting with people from such culturally diverse backgrounds beyond the boundaries of our state, not to mention the fact that nobody in our family was confident in any foreign languages”.

“As a woman, it was a challenge for me to organise the village homestay at my house. But as the network of homestays was so community-oriented and integrated with the village development programme, I gained support from many other villagers”

Reena Daniel – Home stay provider

“Running a home stay has helped us to get exposure to a lot of different cultures. Now my family and I are much more broadminded and are able to better understand people from elsewhere.”

Eliyamma – Home stay

My family has really benefited financially from tourism. However, I don’t want this activity to be the primary source of income.

“The first lesson I learnt as a host was that nothing should be duplicated or deliberately created for the guest and that the best way to host them was to keep things normal. I noticed that they liked very simple things. For example, one of my French guests loved the sound of the crickets crying around my house. She spent hours trying to find them in the courtyard”.

Mary Eldho – pioneer home stay provider , Thrikkaipetta