6. Six Years and a Flood

Lars Peter Nissen: 00:12

The reform of the humanitarian system has focused on the existing players. We spend a lot of energy figuring out how to coordinate better with each other, how to change the cluster system, how to develop normative frameworks for the IRC and we have spent much less energy on thinking about and identifying other new actors who can add value to the humanitarian project. That's why today's guest on Trumanitarian is really interesting. Gopinath Parayil is a tour operator from Kerala, India. He has a very simple yet brilliant idea: dual purpose travel assets for response in sudden onset crisis. The travel industry provides everything a person on the move needs, and so is a perfect mirror of the humanitarian industry in terms of its services and capabilities. At the same time, the travel industry's turnover is counted in trillions and not in billions. They exceed humanitarian expenditure with a factor of several thousand. So Gopinath's idea is twofold, one dual purpose the assets the travel industry has for response, and secondly, find ways of driving value towards crisis affected populations from the travel industry. It's an interesting and fresh idea and if we can find a way of scaling it, it can make a significant difference in highly vulnerable communities across the world. I hope you enjoy the conversation. Gopinath Parayil. It's a great pleasure to welcome you to Trumanitarian.

Gopinath Parayil: 01:44

Thank you, thank you, it's a pleasure to be here

Lars Peter Nissen: 01:47

Your are otherwise known as Gopi. And you are a man of many talents. You're a social entrepreneur, you are trained in disaster management, you are working in responsible tourism and are the founder of the Blue Yonder. And maybe let's begin there. Tell us a bit about the Blue Yonder. What is that?

Gopinath Parayil: 02:05

Blue Yonder is a travel company we set up in 2OO4. It happens to be India's first responsible travel initiative, where our focus is about developing a lot of sustainable development focus initiatives, which we then tweak it into beautiful experiential travel for tourist travellers from around the world to consume. But the beauty of what we started was it started as a initiative, a not-for-profit initiative, to support river conservation initiatives. But within the first year itself, we realised that's probably not the way we wanted to move. We wanted to take it to social entrepreneurship space, where we wanted to look at it as an alternative to how the aid systems worked. We didn't want it to be run like a typical NGO, we didn't want to be dependent on funds coming from elsewhere. So what we did was all our focus was about how do we create wealth for the community? And while doing that, how do we sustain ourselves? How do we also create wealth for ourselves? That was a focus. So we started looking at what made the area where we work very interesting, not only for the local people, but for the whole world in the sense... the place that where we come from, we very passionately call it as The River Nila. It's in central northern part of Kerala, where almost all the classical literature, whether it is performing arts or other cultural art forms, they all came from this area. It was, for some reason, nurtured by the local landlords or Zamindars or Dart mirages of olden time. And even now in the contemporary time, if you look at the literature, if you look at the music, the place is so rich, but unfortunately, the river that is passing through this region is in very bad condition, you know, so there's hardly any water some of the time because of innumerable dams that they build. Then there's a major problem of sand mining in the area, which is used mostly for construction. So all these issues were there. So we decided that we will set up a not for profit basically to study why the rivers are dying. But during that research, we also realised that there's a rich... there's a there's a lot of richness when it comes to knowledge, community, knowledge about farming, about lifestyle. And then, in order to generate wealth for the community, what we did is we translated, or we kind of transformed all these development projects that we launched the area, to be an experience that can be consumed by travellers from around the world.

Lars Peter Nissen: 03:47

Just give us give us a concrete example of that. Say, for example, like, you know, for those people who might understand the class caste differences in India, you know, so a lot of the musical heritage of the area is confined to certain caste communities. So, in 2OO4, a couple of our friends, we set up a school, where we were training anyone and everyone like, you know, whether you are from one gender or class or it doesn't matter, we were... so we started training these people in the traditional percussion of Kerala, we call it as a Panchavadyam. And that one room schools started in 2OO4, has now developed into about 21, schools, training 800 students, including women, and the funds that are needed for it, it comes from the travel experiences. So when traveller comes visits the school, have an interactive session with the community, play along with them learn a little bit, and when they go back, that money actually goes into the community. So about if you spend about $100, about at least $80 goes into the community, that is how it's been structured. And that's just one tiny example. But the empowerment that it gives to communities, the empowerment that it gives it to especially women, that was like opening even our own eyes. So similarly, we started engaging the smugglers in the, you know, the smugglers who take sand from the river. So in one way, we say, Oh, my God, the sand is completely taken away by the smugglers from the river. But what options are you giving to the smugglers? Do they have an alternative? Can you provide an alternative job to them, this is what we started giving them by providing, by requesting these people to ferry my travellers from one end of the river to the other. So this gave dignity, this gave respect, this also gave them good livelihood options. So it's not really just the money, it... what matters is also if you can provide an agency to people on how to live how to create that wealth with dignity, it changes the dynamics completely. So similar to that... So we started... We have like more than 100 small, small initiatives like that and then we convert or transform those into beautiful travel experiences. And now in the past 15, 16 years, we might have won close to 50 international awards, being the best ethical travel company, or the top 10 by... you know, top 10 companies providing sustainable travel, all those things. So we started in Kerala, then we started replicating the model in other parts of the country. That's such a wonderful story. Gopi. And what I found extremely interesting when we first met was that this is... you described very beautifully how you work with sustainable tourism and development. It's a it's a win, win win, basically. But then tell us about what happened when Kerala was hit by floods.

Gopinath Parayil: 08:15

Well, the flood happened in 2O18 August. And interestingly, that was the... aflood of that magnitude happen more than 100 years ago. In about nineteen twenty-four is when we had a major flood like this. And this flood in 2O18 also flowed through the same route. It went through the same place and it marooned quite a lot of places, almost all part of Kerala was submerged in water. And when the flood happened, we were not really prepared for that as a state. We have Kerala State Disaster Management Authority, all those things are there, but the magnitude of what came was something that was surprising. And but in 2O1O, or 11 itself, The Blue Yonder as a travel company, similar to all the projects that we are... we were setting up, one project that we had set it up, it was called a Climate Change resistant Food Initiative. This was in anticipation of an event like this. Because world over... because of global warming, because of climate change related crisis, there were a lot of sectors, especially agriculture, who were struggling. Farmers were struggling because there's saline water intrusion into inland. It was affecting a lot. So there was this one particular community in the district of Cochin in Kerala, where they were producing one particular rice, which used to grow to 1.5 metre tall on an average. And it is... it was pretty conducive in terms of growing in saline condition. But farmers were not making any money out of it, they were losing money. And that's where we entered into the picture in 2O1O, 11, we approached a local cooperative bank and started speaking to them about how we should actually position this particular rise as Climate Change Resistant Food Initiative. And then we started working with them. And my proposal was super simple. One is, we need to figure out a win-win situation where the farmers should be able to produce what they were producing, but it should fetch good amount of money, there should be a local market, as well as we need to figure out some sort of supplementary source of income. And that supplementary source of income was from the tourism. So we offered basic, like... the government subsidy at that time was about 19 rupees a kilogramme. And where we made a proposal telling, we are happy to provide you about 110 rupees. You know, that's like, five, six times more than what the government was giving. They didn't believe us. So it took about a year to convince them that this is actually possible. And what we did was we reached out to more than 70 hotels and resorts in and around the area. And the place was also known for tourism that helped. And we reached out to the hotels and tourism and then we told them about this unique product which can grow in salt water, which is a climate change resistant food. And it created a lot of interest among entrepreneurs, especially those people who were desperate to have guests staying for an extra night. Because they were tired or showing them around the same Chinese fishing land that, they were, you know, always showing the same synagogue. Ensure them that here is an opportunity for them to tell a story of local people, how they are producing an amazing variety of rice. And especially the European travellers, they found it very curious. It was interesting story and they were happy to stay extra nights and so it became a win-win situation where the farmer started getting extra good amount of money, the hotelier started getting money because the guests are staying for extra nights because they wanted to have more experiences, and then us, the tour operator, also start earning money because we started providing day trips for them. But now if you look at the whole structure in which we design, what we did was the small boats, the kayaks, country, boats, etc, that we were investing in the community initially were used for planting mangroves, they were used for going into the farm. And that was our investment. But within six months, it became an extra source of income for the community because we started requesting them to take our travellers on it. So that started bringing the money. Then once the harvest is over, they would get money from the hotels from our own partners in different places and then, during the journey, what we did was also to train the community to do first aids, to do search and rescue, what do you do when you see someone in the water. I know so swimming, irrespective of Kerala being covered in water, like we have 44 rivers in such a small state. But water sport is not something that is greatly celebrated here. You know, so every year close to a thousand kids drown in Kerala, because they don't know how to swim. So we were focusing on all those things. And then, in 2O18 when the flood came, our team had kayaks, boats, paddles, life jackets, first aid kits, everything. Like in a matter of 48 hours, we managed to rescue 48OO+ people, of course in sub... with support from so many other people. But we did not have to wait for anyone else to come and rescue. We had our stuff, we could repurpose our tools. You know, the kayak or a boat, which was used for a conservation activity, was repurposed into a tourism tool, which was bringing in money into the community. And at the same time, the same tool was repurposed into a search and rescue tool. You know, so that is what we were doing, basically using all our tourism network to be repurposed into any humanitarian tool.

Lars Peter Nissen: 14:30

And listening to you talk, I think the two things that stand out to me is this shared value that you identify, the way you you find ways of turning it into a plus sum game where everybody wins. And on the other hand, this idea that a community such as the one you describe, which is very reliant on tourism as a source of income, how in crisis situation, those travel assets or tourism acids can actually be dual purpose to also serve in response to the crisis. Knowing you, you're not going to leave it there. How did you take it onwards?

Gopinath Parayil: 15:07

Well, when the flood-related work happened, I remember one of our local partners from the Farmers Cooperative, the Secretary of the Bank, he called me and said it took six years and a flood for us to understand what you guys were talking about. So when we were talking about Climate Change Resistant Food Initiative, you know, they were probably looking at us more as a opportunity to tell story of a unique product. It was not only storytelling, it was giving insights into the local community about the goldmine on which they were sitting. You know, on one side, they are telling we have this unique variety of rice, but we can't sell it. The reason they might not... they didn't manage to sell it probably was because the story was not powerful enough. They were not conveying the richness of the variety, the process through it. That's what we do as tour operators. We tell the story. We build up the stories, we present it in a way that is more attractive to a traveller. And it was important that it's not only the traveller, the same story has to be sold to the local community as well. If they don't buy into the story, there is no way you can build something from there. So we started working from the scratch, engaged farmers and the local cooperative. At the same time, we reached out to the local hoteliers. And then as a next step, what we did there, once that Pokali related work was going on, there was another community just about nine kilometres away from the same village near Cochin. This is a village of weaver's, were about 300 families were living in that village. For many centuries, they've been doing only weaving. They were brought from, you know, many other states, they settled down here because the local rulers needed such exquisite clothes that were made by these people. But in 2O18, when the flood happened, in many locations were these farmers that I work with, when we went for the rescue and came back, we were actually in this village as well at that time. But once the water receded, we went to check on what happened to them and what we saw was like heartbreaking, in the sense, more than seven large units, which were employing at least 100 people on an average, they were all underwater for 12 days. More than eight feet of water for twelve days. So, you know, similar to what Christmas is, for us, there is a festival called Onam, which was just one week after this flood, you know, so whatever money they would normally make in a year, 75 percentage of that would come around that time, but since all the stock were underwater, they lost all that money, they look lost all the stock, and they didn't know what to do. That's the moment when we met them. And then I asked them what are you guys gonna do with all the waste because now these textiles, such exquisite textile, you can use it any longer. So they said, We don't know what to do. We are still waiting for some instructions from the government about what we should do about it. Some weaver's had insurance, some did not have any, most of them did not have insurance. So that's where we made a proposal telling that why not clean up all these clothes. Wash it, it was thinking at that time, but we dry cleaned it, some we watched many, many times in hot, warm water in cold water. You know, we had like hundreds of volunteers were doing it. And then we converted each sarees into little 250 to 300 little dolls. And we crowdsource all that effort. You know, it was not done by one company or one initiative, one volunteer, even though the initiative was kickstarted by two of us my friend Lakshmi and I. We... What we did is we opened up the whole initiative to the public, because that particular doll, it represented whatever we were going through, because it was not a perfect doll. It had dirt on it, it had mud on it, but at the same time it has an amazing story attached to it. So we built on that and then we started selling these little dolls through a website set up for the weavers. You know, so for just 25 rupees per doll, we started selling it and in about 120 days, some $120,000 were raised and obviously people were paying more for each store. So we said this is the minimum rate that you should pay. And then, as a result of all these things, what happened was that not a single woman from that village lost her job. And they had a reason to celebrate and they became kind of a mascot of Kerala, you know, that little doll called Chekutty. Yeah, so that was the second stage of the engagement that we had. And that gave us an opportunity to start talking more to the tourism industry. But unfortunately, what happened was that a lot of people were kind of in a relaxed mood after the 2O18 flood, thinking that this is a once-in-100-year flood. Bang. 2O19, similar. Another 150 people died. Even in 2O18, I remember like the government press conferences was... you know, they were talking about the need for 5 Billion US dollar to rebuild a better Kerala. So imagine if every time you have a flood like this, and we go into this, you know, ever-continuing rebuilding process, that's unsustainable for any destination. So that is where we started talking to those people we were working with, basically the communities as well as the tour operators and hoteliers, about the need for a resilient destination. You know? So imagine our tour operator sitting in Geneva or in London... You know, imagine if their focus is always on South India, and South India is continuously ravaged by flood or disasters or cyclone or tsunami, how many times will you be able to send the travellers? You're out of your business. Similarly, the community here as well, you know, they are out of the business, not only about the business of tourism, but tourism is actually a result of so many other activities, you know, farming is there, textiles are there, culture is there, performances, many things. So if all these things are affected, how are you going to provide them? So it affects... so a small disaster in Kerala could result in a liquidation of a company sitting somewhere else in the market in Canada or US or Dubai someplace. So we made a proposal to all these people, I was invited by about 150 hotels in Cochin, where they said, Okay, could you maybe present an idea about what this resiliant destination was? And then we started telling them about what we did with all these two communities, then along Nila, in places like Wayanad... And then they further, you know, pushed it to their main general body where they wanted me to make another presentation about how could they actually be a participant in all these things. Theory is one, but what can they do? It was during that time COVID-19 came into the picture and everything went on to a standstill.

Lars Peter Nissen: 22:58

Before we jump into COVID-19, let's just go back to what you just said. Because... so of the reading you give of the interest from the travel industry is essentially the same logic that you apply in Kerala about finding shared value. They have an interest in making sure that they are destinations that they can send travellers to, and you have an interest, of course, in protecting your your livelihood. There's another reading as well, which is that climate change is obviously a contributing factor to the increase in disasters we see and we all know that the travel industry has quite a role to play in that as they heat the planet flying around... people around the world.

Gopinath Parayil: 23:39

Well, this was... not this was this is still actually an amazing opportunity for tourism industry to transform from where it was. Because there is no way... like one one good thing about this whole campaigns run by youngsters like Greta Thornburg about the need for every one of us to be responsible for what we do when it comes to climate change adaptability. Was that we... In a place like India, for example, we hardly talk about climate crisis, even if we are one of... probably going to be one of the most vulnerable... We already are. And it's going to be worse. And just before COVID, the story was all... you know, we were kind of realising, because especially because of various campaigns run by youngsters... Then they were initiatives by small small organisations, pinpointing that travel industry also has a clear role in terms of increasing the greenhouse gas emission. So slowly, very slowly, companies were coming out telling like, we do have a responsibility and we would like to do something and many were quite clueless about how they want to do. So it is in that context, the small things that we were doing were attractive for quite a large companies in different places.

Lars Peter Nissen: 25:12

I... so, the opportunity is huge, right? Because I think we have to introduce scale here. If you look at the humanitarian industry, we are about the size of the bubblegum industry. We spent somewhere $26.8 billion a year. The travel industry is an $8 trillion industry. They are thousand and thousands and thousands of times bigger than the humanitarian industry. So if we can find a way of driving some of that value towards the communities that you have described in Kerala, we might be able to really change things at the same time. If the engagement is more around reputational risk, rather than a real interest in preserving the local travel ecosystem, if you want, don't we run... How do you make sure that it doesn't become greenwashing? I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Gopinath Parayil: 26:04

It cannot be and it will not be an it should not be about only reputational damage. You might be able to get the attention of the travel industry based on the reputational damage, but that is, again, we are talking about a small percentage of a trillion-dollar business to listen to even such a theory. But what they will understand is when you tell them that, 'Your sustainability, your own business, sustainability, is directly linked to the sustainability of a destination.' I mean, if I cannot send a traveller to a destination because it is completely affected by a disaster, I will understand that there is a need for me to invest in that community by maybe investing in the mangrove plantations of the region, you know, mangrove forests of the region, or giving more agency to local fishermen in terms of protecting their own preserves: those kinds of stuff. And if you can clearly show that there is a model where the travel industry, whether it's a hotelier or a tour operator, or even airlines can invest in such project, only then they will understand. Because those projects can... if it can be tweaked into, like we have done, to tweak into travel experiences, everyone makes money. So this whole... The story of only reputational damage will not work because it will, as you said very clearly, it will end up as a greenwashing. So only if it convinced the people that any investment is also about their own sustainability, their own financial sustainability... Unfortunately, some people understand only the language of money, so we need to show them that it is possible for them to make money. So it's like doing well by doing good. You know, not like a CSR story where you give a certain amount of money out of guilt, also to get some tax deduction. That's a prehistoric idea of philanthropy. That's not gonna work. You know, now we need to show them, Okay, you put your money in gear, it is going to change millions of people's life. And while doing that you can also become rich, you know?

Lars Peter Nissen: 28:17

It's a very powerful story you tell from Kerala. And it's very appealing to think of this $8 trillion industry and figure out how to drive value towards the local communities. The thing that strikes me when you tell the story is the role that you play. So the question in my mind is, if I look at Mozambique, Inhambane, for example, I can see community in a very similar position. But how do you scale Gopi?

Gopinath Parayil: 28:49

Well, you will be surprised to see the amount of responsible tourism initiatives around the world, whether it's Europe or Africa or Asia, they are all there. But it's not yet become such a large, influential sector within the tourism sector where people sit and watch. We have... we claim that we are part of a movement, but I don't think we have reached out there. But there are so many small organisations that are turning around how development sector used to work. And that's a great lesson for the humanitarian sector to look at also You know, how... Because in the humanitarian sector, we consistently talk about... at least in the past 20 years, talk about localization (the need for the local initiatives, local organisation, to be empowered to have more money, etc, etc.), but it's not really happening. You know, especially in a country like India, or you know... There's so much of wealth within the country which needs to be tapped, but people need reason. People need, you know, proper reasons for doing all those kinds of stuff. So if we can identify those community organisations... You know, for big change to happen, we don't necessarily need very large organisations all the time. Small organisations coming together on a global platform can turn around things. And right now, especially after all these floods, etc, we've been connecting with a lot of grassroot organisation (I'm talking purely from an India perspective right now) and the relationship that we have built, the knowledge that we are sharing about what we are... you know, I talk about what we do in Kerala, someone else in Spiti Valley, in the... in Himachal Pradesh, in the Himalayas, talk about what she does there. You know, so we are bringing together all this knowledge which we are actually using right now even to fight the current crisis of COVID. You know, so we... a company like The Blue Yonder might be talking more about what they do. There are so many hundreds of other companies who are not really talking about what they are doing and it is our responsibility to reach out to those people and provide them a platform so that the world know about the impact they are creating so that it can be replicated in other parts of the world.

Lars Peter Nissen: 31:18

This platform that you have begun building for responsible travel operators who are sort of thinking in this space, does it have a name? What are the main functions? How far have you gone in that work?

Gopinath Parayil: 31:30

Well, again, I... you know, for me, all of a sudden, my life has come to a stage where I need to talk about anything about before COVID and during COVID. So before COVID, past one year, especially after the 2O19 floods, you know, once a second flood came in Kerala, we've been reaching out to various organisations (I'm not only talking about those in Kerala, or in India, we are talking about organisations, like even Intrepid in Australia)... We've been reaching out to these people, and pitching a story. And this story that we've been pitching to them has been exactly saying that I just shared with you about how community-based responsible tourism organisations can actually be the driver, can be the change, in terms of linking up the development sector and the humanitarian sector. Now, as you were telling earlier, like the humanitarian sector is very tiny compared to the large tourism sector. And if you look at the airport to airport supply chain, that we manage there's hardly anything that we don't touch, whether it's accommodation, whether it's food and beverage, whether it is the human resources, or financial resources, it's a pretty rich industry. And we've been talking to a lot of people and we have received quite a good response from very large companies as well as small companies across the world. And we were reaching out to some philanthropy-based organisation funders telling that we need a platform to be built initially, where 10 to 12... the so-called 'competing' travel companies and hoteliers come together to build resilient destinations across the world. And we have a model to look at it already exist. And when we take this to a place like Kenya, maybe we might have to tweak it in different way, because the local realities are different. If he's take it to someplace in Scandinavia, it might be totally different game because the welfare system model that is there, you know, might look at situations on the ground in a different way. Because many things that we take it for granted, might look very exotic for someone else somewhere. You know, so there's a lot of learning from all these things. So that is where we were. Like it was a platform that we had in mind where we share all these experiences, put together the case studies, and then at the same time, make sure that there is a consumable product that is easy to consume, which is the tourism that should come as an end product of all these things, because that is what we thought will create or generate wealth. That is where we were. Like so it was a few baby steps that we took, and then, bang, came the COVID-19. And now we are like fighting that.

Lars Peter Nissen: 34:31

Yeah, you were talking about six years and a flood is what it took. So here we have decades and decades and a pandemic. So how did that work?

Gopinath Parayil: 34:42

The COVID-19 has thrown... I mean, it has thrown everyone else out of the game, you know? There's a lot of wait and watch game going on from the humanitarian sector. The travel industry, for example, like... there was a time, you know, few months before the COVID-19 hit, where we were talking about... you know, I was far more confident than now, in the sense of that it was easy for me to go and talk to a travel company, or a hotelier, about the need for setting up resiliant destinations with an urgency. I... You know, I was telling them, We should start, we should set it up in next six months, so that we are ready for the coming seasons. But that game has completely changed. There is no way I can, right now, today, if I pick up a phone call and talk to one of the largest hotelier in India or a tour operator, and tell them that it is time that we invest in the destinations, no one is going to buy the story because right now, it's all about their own survival. You know, people or large organisations or small organisation, we are all letting our employees go because there's no way for anyone to pay salary. So right now, it's about their own survival. But I think once things slowly start getting back to... I wouldn't say normal, because whatever we had in the past was never normal and it should never be that normal. But after six months, once, maybe, you know, mass-produced vaccines started going into different parts of the world and people have the confidence to move around a little bit here and there. Based on what happened in the past few decades with clear cut stories that we have experienced, we will be able to convince large travel companies as well as strong small travel companies and destination managers to go back and invest in communities. Because if you do not have a community that is resilient to climate change or a crisis like what happened with Corona virus, there is no way that any of these businesses will survive. So it is important that we build these capacities. But then building that capacity is very expensive. Now, who is going to put money into that is going to be the question. Until now, I was telling that the tourism industry has the capacity to put the money in such an initiative because it's not a philanthropy, it's not a CSR, because that investment is something where they can actually take the money back. You know, so it was a... that is how it was positioned. But it's gonna take more efforts, even though the reality is that this is the best opportunity for us to reinvent and rethink and reposition and repurpose everything we've been doing, not just for tourism sector, whether it's eight sector, whether development sector, this is the time for us to reposition everything, but it's gonna be a slow process compared to what we were driving earlier. It will take more convincing, it will need more push, but because of what has happened in the past six months, I think people will be ready to listen, albeit slowly.

Lars Peter Nissen: 38:14

It is a time for change. And I think if there is a person who can leverage this moment, it's you. And I want to say thank you for sharing your fantastic story and I look forward to seeing what comes next from Gopi's side.

Gopinath Parayil: 38:31

Let's see. I'll keep you posted about what is happening. Actually, right now we are talking to pretty large cooperative in Southern India to set up resilient communities in different places. But it's still very early stages of discussions. And yeah, but I can see that functionally in about a year.

Lars Peter Nissen: 38:53

Sounds fantastic, Gopi. Thank you so much for taking time to come on the podcast, and all the best wishes for your future work.

Gopinath Parayil: 39:01

Thank you, Lars. Thank you for inviting.