Kerala Tourism - From a Quiet Backwater to the World Stage, and What Comes Next

I entered the Kerala tourism industry in 2008, the year Lehman Brothers collapsed and sent the global economy into freefall. Not the most auspicious moment to begin a career in travel. But the industry bounced back faster than anyone expected, and what followed was one of the most remarkable growth stories in Indian tourism.

I've had a front row seat to all of it. And now, in 2026, I find myself watching the industry navigate its most complex period yet.

This is Kerala tourism's story. The rise, the disruption, and why I still believe in it completely.

Before the World Noticed - Kerala in the 1980s

Kerala's relationship with tourism didn't begin with a campaign or a government initiative. It began with the land itself.

Wedged between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea, Kerala occupies one of the most geographically gifted strips of territory on earth. Tropical forests, spice-covered hills, a network of backwaters stretching hundreds of kilometres, a coastline of extraordinary beauty and a culture shaped by centuries of trade with the Arab world, China, Portugal, the Netherlands and Britain. The ingredients were always there.

By 1986, the Kerala government took a significant step, formally declaring tourism an industry. It was an acknowledgement that this land had something the world wanted. The Kerala Tourism Development Corporation had been laying early groundwork, and a handful of private players were beginning to see the opportunity. But the infrastructure was modest. The international awareness was minimal.

That was about to change!

The Golden Run - 1992 to 2018

If I had to mark a single moment when Kerala tourism truly began its ascent, I would point to the early 1990s and the opening of the Spice Village in Thekkady by CGH Earth. It was arguably the first property in Kerala that combined genuine creature comforts with an authentic, immersive experience rooted in the local landscape. It set a standard and a philosophy that would come to define the best of Kerala hospitality, not luxury for its own sake, but luxury in service of a deeper connection with the place.

From that point, the growth was remarkable. Through the 1990s and into the 2000s, Kerala Tourism invested heavily in international marketing. PR agencies in Germany, the United Kingdom, France and across Europe were engaged to carry Kerala's story to the markets most likely to respond to it. The campaigns worked. European travellers, particularly from France, Germany and the UK, discovered Kerala in significant numbers and fell deeply in love with it.

The tagline that emerged from this period, God's Own Country, was more than marketing. It captured something genuinely felt by the people who arrived here. The backwaters of Alleppey. The tea gardens of Munnar. The spice trails of Thekkady. The colonial heritage of Fort Kochi. The ancient ritual traditions of the Malabar coast. Kerala offered a density of experience that few destinations anywhere in the world could match.

From 1992 to 2018, with one brief interruption when the 2008 global financial crisis temporarily slowed things down, Kerala tourism grew in an almost linear upward trajectory. New properties opened. Houseboat culture flourished. Ayurveda became a global wellness destination draw. International arrivals climbed year after year.

For those of us working in the industry during this period, it felt, if I'm honest, relatively easy. Guests came consistently. The destination sold itself. The challenge was keeping up with demand, not generating it.

The Disruptions - 2018 Onwards

Then, in 2018, the floods came.

Kerala experienced its worst flooding in nearly a century. The images that circulated internationally were devastating, and they carried a message to prospective travellers that was difficult to counter. Kerala, to some markets, suddenly felt uncertain. Dangerous, even.

The following year brought further natural disruptions. And then, in 2020, COVID arrived and the entire global travel industry simply stopped.

What followed was unlike anything the industry had experienced. Not a downturn. Not a slowdown. A complete cessation. Operators who had built businesses over decades suddenly had no guests, no revenue and no timeline for recovery.

When travel restarted in 2022, there was a brief period of what people called revenge travel, a surge of pent-up demand that gave the industry a moment of optimism. But it was a spike, not a recovery. Kerala tourism has not returned to its pre-COVID levels. The destination remains relatively expensive compared to alternatives, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, other parts of India, and the cost of living and labour in Kerala means that pricing pressure is unlikely to ease significantly.

Then came further headwinds. Geopolitical tensions between India and Pakistan in 2025 created anxiety in key source markets. In 2026, the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East continue to create uncertainty in travel sentiment globally. The industry is navigating a period of profound consolidation.

Many operators have left. Some of the largest players, carrying significant overheads, office spaces, large staff, expensive infrastructure, are facing extremely difficult conditions. The easy years built habits and structures that the current environment cannot sustain.

What Is Actually Changing

I think about this a lot. And I've come to believe that what we're experiencing is not simply a bad patch following a good one. Something more fundamental is shifting.

The way people discover travel has changed. The way they research it has changed. Artificial intelligence is now part of how travellers find operators, plan itineraries and make decisions. The knowledge and communication that tour operators have traditionally sold, local expertise, curated recommendations, trusted relationships, is increasingly accessible through other means.

This is a genuine challenge for the industry. Not an insurmountable one, but a real one.

At the same time, the travellers who are coming to Kerala, those who are still choosing it deliberately over cheaper, easier alternatives, are a different kind of traveller. They are not coming for a package holiday. They are coming for depth. For slowness. For the kind of human connection and cultural immersion that no algorithm can replicate and no AI can provide.

They want to sit in Febin's kitchen at "My Gramam" and talk about how the coconut harvest works. They want to watch Theyyam at a local temple at midnight, not on a stage. They want to cycle through village roads where nobody is performing for them. They want Kerala's real life, not Kerala's highlights reel.

That shift in what the best travellers are seeking is, I believe, the most important development in Kerala tourism right now. And it points clearly to where the opportunity lies.

Why I'm Still Here

I want to be honest. These are not easy times for a small tour operator in Kerala. The overheads are real. The uncertainty is real. The competition, including from technologies that didn't exist five years ago is real.

In fact I did leave the industry, I wanted to leave the industry because of the uncertainty it had to face. The people who experienced the rosy period might have expected the industry to bounce back. But I did not feel the confidence. I was literally shattered like many in the industry, where you end up into a zero income zone. I would say the industry sucked me back with circumstance (which I will keep for another blog post when the time arrives - It was my guests who literally pulled me back into the industry). Partly because I genuinely cannot imagine doing anything else or what ever I tried to do failed. Fifteen years of leading people through this land, watching their faces when they first see the backwaters at dawn, or when a homestay family serves them a meal they'll remember for the rest of their lives, that doesn't get old.

Today I believe with complete conviction, that what Kerala offers is irreplaceable. No destination on earth has quite this combination, the geography, the culture, the food, the history, the warmth of the people, the sheer biological richness of a land that sits at the meeting point of the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea.

There are millions of people across Europe, Australia, the Americas who have never heard of Kerala. Who don't know that India has a tropical destination of this quality and depth. The market is not shrinking. It is waiting to be reached, in new ways, through new channels, with new kinds of storytelling.

The consolidation that the industry is going through right now is painful. But consolidation is not decline. After the floods recede, new land forms. The operators who remain, the ones who genuinely know this destination, who have built real relationships, who offer something that cannot be automated, will find themselves in a stronger position than before.

I entered this industry in its first crisis and watched it flourish for a decade. I intend to be here for the next flourishing too.

Kerala isn't going anywhere. Neither am I.

Benjamin John is the founder of Green Earth Trails, a responsible tour operator based in Kochi, Kerala, specialising in slow travel, small group and private South India journeys. He has been working in Kerala and South India tourism since 2008.

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