Being Responsible

One of the first TBY-Vayali micro-credit beneficiary

Last year at the World Travel Market in London, one of the leading destination management companies from Cochin asked us this question. “All your talk about responsible tourism is fine. It’s easy for a property to be more responsible than a tour operator like us. They can make simple changes like install energy saving bulbs or setup rainwater harvesting in their property. They might purchase local produces. Even if we had aspirations to be a responsible tourism operator, frankly we don’t know how to do this. Do you have some suggestions?”

This kept me thinking and here are some observations posted on The Blue Yonder blog

Social enterprises redefining sector boundaries?

“I am investigating the possibilities of creating awareness of non -malignant palliative issues among various communities and to encourage community participation, and would like some ideas and advice. Thank you very much”


We are quite certain that not many travel companies will receive enquiries that are unrelated to holiday planning! Especially something like the one above. This was a message The Blue Yonder team received from a pathologist in South Africa recently. For us, this is a proof of what an impact a maturing relationship between two social enterprises can create. One- working to spread the community owned palliative care to rest of the world (Institute of Palliative Medicine) and the other- a sustainable tourism operator using tourism as a tool to bring attention of the world to successful and inspiring initiatives like Kozhikode model of Palliative care (The Blue Yonder).



Read the complete blog here