Suyatri, a social enterprise focused on community-led, experiential and ethical tourism, is stepping up its efforts to create greater awareness among travellers about responsible and slow travel, with a new campaign and mascot among the initiatives it plans to roll out this month.
Speaking to TravelBiz Monitor, Suyatri founder Sumesh Mangalasseri said the organisation will use a two-day programme in Bengaluru on September 18 and 19 to take its message of ethical and slow travel to a wider audience.
The programme, being organised in collaboration with Alliance Française de Bangalore, will see the launch of ‘Muthu Swami, the Gentle Wanderer’, a mascot developed from a concept created by student interns from the Mudra Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.
Mangalasseri said the centre character, a calf elephant, was conceived around the contrast between Muthu’s curiosity to stop and experience everything around him and his mother’s urge to keep moving with the herd.
“What’s the rush?” forms the central theme of the campaign, which seeks to make travellers reflect on the value of slowing down and experiencing destinations more meaningfully.
The character will be brought alive through a 20-minute storytelling performance in Bharatanatyam by dancer Lakshmi Narayanan, Mangalasseri’s partner at Suyatri. The performance combines dance, narration and instrumental accompaniment to tell Muthu’s story.
Another key initiative is Suyatri’s ‘Ethical is Fun’ workshop, a 90-minute interactive programme that helps travellers design their journeys in a more ethical manner. The workshop uses a travel-themed snakes-and-ladders game and other activities to make participants examine the impact of their travel choices.
“We feel awareness is something important,” Mangalasseri said, pointing to the growing need for greater sensitivity among Indian travellers, whose behaviour at some international destinations has increasingly attracted criticism. Suyatri has already conducted six to seven such workshops in Goa, Mangaluru and Bengaluru and is looking to scale them through volunteer groups in future.
The Bengaluru programme will also feature a panel discussion on slow travel and a photography exhibition documenting the backwaters of Alappuzha.
For Suyatri, however, awareness is only one part of its larger approach to ethical tourism. Mangalasseri who earlier founded the Kabani village tourism initiative in Wayanad, has been working with communities to create tourism models that generate local livelihoods while offering travellers more immersive experiences.
In Udupi, Suyatri is working with a women-led producer company comprising 1,000 shareholders to develop homestays, experience centres and a higher-end restaurant. Six to seven experience centres, each offering a distinct local experience and managed by women, are also being developed, with the programme expected to be launched by November-end.
The organisation is pursuing different community-led models elsewhere. Its Wayanad initiative works with farmers through homestays that provide an additional source of income, while in Ramanagara, Suyatri has developed a silk experience taking visitors from mulberry cultivation to silk saree production, with trained local women acting as guides.
Suyatri has also developed a wilderness and adventure tourism trail around Dandeli by working with local Siddi community, which offers guests to stay in Siddi villages.
“We are looking for partners to take this further,” Mangalasseri said, reflecting Suyatri’s ambition to expand the reach of ethical and slow travel beyond its own projects and into the wider tourism ecosystem.
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