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Tsunami of Tourism

When the tsunami hit South East Asia, devastating coastal communties and taking some 230,000 lives, Tourism Concern was immediately aware of the severity of the impact on local people. This was not just because of the loss of lives and homes, but because of land evictions for tourism developments. More than three years on, following the biggest aid effort in history which saw £400 million donated from the UK alone, we ask what happened to the tsunami survivors and why are they still suffering.

Tourism Concern's Tsunami of Tourism Campaign is linked with our Tsunami and Displacement Project, which aims to raise awareness around tourism issues and build the capacity of tsunami-hit communities threatened with displacement and unsustainable developments in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, India, and coastal areas of Sri Lanka.

India: Hemmed in and sold out

The village of Kaipanikuppam, Tamil Nadu, is an hour’s drive north from Pondicherry along the newly developed East Coast Road. Massive hoardings advertising soon-to-be-constructed holiday villas, luxury hotels and second homes adorn the roadside, evidence of the real estate boom that is taking the area by storm.

At Kaipanikuppam, prospecting real estate agents have been buying up land and selling it on to tourism developers for ten years. The pressure placed on the community to sell is immense, with business-savvy brokers keen to exploit their inexperience in dealing with global market forces. The village is now hemmed in on all sides by land that no longer belongs them, but urgently needs space to rebuild homes destroyed in the tsunami. Living conditions are cramped, there is little privacy and sanitation is poor. However, land prices have skyrocketed to well beyond the community’s means, while their dependence on the sea for fishing means that relocating is not an option.

Although the boats and equipment washed away by the tsunami have been replaced, fish catches have plummeted, placing livelihoods under renewed threat and forcing many families into levels of poverty never seen here before - a situation exacerbated by the recent increase in global food prices. There is no money to send children to school beyond the age of ten, and no opportunities to generate alternative means of income.

An Indian hotel group has acquired large areas of land around the village and plans to construct a luxury hotel. It has been attempting to sweeten villagers with promises of jobs and recently rebuilt their temple. However, residents realise that their lack of education and inexperience means they would only be employed in the most menial roles. There are added concerns about the environmental impact that the hotel would have on remaining fish stocks.

The community of Kaipanikuppam is fearful of the future. They asked the hotel group to return six acres of land so they can rebuild homes, but their request was declined. The women say they do not know where they are going to feed their families from one day to the next.

In the village of Mararikulam, Kerala, whole communities have been talked into selling their and relocating by developers, only realising the consequences when it is too late. Developers have also been ‘privatising’ communal beachfront land by building private roads, erecting fences, and posting security guards.

Land Rights and Displacement

Whole communities in Tamil Nadu, on India’s east coast, remain in temporary shelters; - shelters that have had to withstand heavy monsoon rains thus making living conditions even more difficult than they already are.

At the heart of the problem lie ongoing land disputes. M.A. Sekhar of the Tamil Nadu Coastal Panchayat Resource Centre feels that in some areas strategic evictions of fishing communities from prime beachfront land is taking place in the name of tourism. “We suspect this land is being kept for big hotels and private investors,” he said.

He mentions the village of Karikkattukuppam in Kancheepuram where 300 families are reduced to living on six acres of land compared to the sixteen acres they had previously because the government has said that the rest of the land is earmarked for tourism. In Kovalam, near Chennai, the building of new permanent houses promised by the authorities hasn’t even begun yet.

Concerned that villagers may be unaware of their rights, the resource centre recently held a meeting of newly elected coastal representatives in Kancheepuram and Villapuram. The complex principles governing the Coastal Regulation Zones were explained at the meeting. “We are teaching them about their rights,” said Mr Sekhar. “Sea is their life and coast is their right.”

He goes on to explain that once people are aware of their rights, they can challenge the government in a court of law. He stresses that settling amicably is the villagers’ main aim; they just want to be able to return to their old lives.

Participants at the meeting called upon the government to critically review existing tourism projects before proposing new ones. “The impact of the tsunami rehabilitation process,” sighed Mr Sekhar, “is worse than the tsunami itself.”