If Dubai is building artificial islands in the sea, our men from the “God’s own country” are all set to build a floating village!
The proposed water-wonder, according to the Kerala government, will be a cluster of 100 houseboats offering over 600 rooms equipped with all modern amenities.
The houseboats, called 'Kettuvalloms’ in Malayalam, are boats made by tying together pieces of wood and are a great hit among tourists who wish to explore Kerala’s backwaters. The houseboat village will come up off the coast of Kochi by December this year.
“Though houseboats have been an integral part of our tourist attraction programme, the idea of a houseboat village was born out of necessity,” Kerala’s tourism director M Sivasankar told Business Standard.
The idea was basically mooted to address the accommodation-crunch likely to hit Kochi when the city becomes a stopover point for the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09, a global yacht marathon.
The race, which starts from Alicante in Spain on October 4, will be a nine-month odyssey covering 37,000 nautical miles with stopovers at 11 ports. The race will touch Asia for the first time this year through the Kochi port.
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Sivasankar said: “As this is an international event, we expect thousands of sports enthusiasts to descend upon Kochi and this is bound to result in a shortage of hotel rooms. As we cannot build hotel rooms overnight, we hit upon the idea to create a houseboat village in the sea to address the shortage.”
The race teams will halt in the port city for nearly a week till their respective yachts are overhauled. Each yacht team will be accompanied by about 40-50 repair experts, who will be flown in from their respective countries. Moreover, the sponsors of each of the yacht teams are expected to bring 200-250 guests to cheer their teams.
Sivasankar said: “We have held discussions with the owners of the houseboats and are confident of addressing issues pertaining to accommodation.” He, however, declined to comment on the budget for the village.
“There is not much expenditure involved here. The houseboats will be run like hotels and all that we will do is provide berthing facilities. This apart, we are thinking of putting in place a drinking water supply system, sewage treatment mechanisms and ensuring continuous power supply to the houseboat village.” he added.
Though the houseboat village has been designed only to overcome the accommodation crisis during the race, tourism department officials contend: “We will see how the idea works. If it is well received, we will think of making it an attraction during international events hosted by the state.”
The Ocean Race has been taken seriously by the Kerala government as it seeks to enhance Kochi as the hub of leisure sailing and cruising.
The government has also proposed to create a 2.5 acre Race Village of global standards at the scenic Willingdon island. The stopover highlights include a art and craft exhibition showcasing products from Kerala, dance and music festival and snakeboat races.
The race will also coincide with the Grand Kerala Shopping Festival to be held from December 1 to January 15, 2009. The government has earmarked Rs 20 crore towards making the festival a success.
Last year, a total of 2,195 shops took part in the shopping festival and prizes worth Rs 10 crore, including 10 kg of gold, were given away. This year, about 5,000 shops are expected to participate in the festival.