Sri Vijaya Puram, May 16:
In a move aimed at shifting the tourism narrative away from sun-and-sand dependency, the Directorate of Tourism has called on local start-ups and entrepreneurs to transform Sri Vijaya Puram’s streets, kitchens, communities and colonial history into bookable city experiences.
At a day-long workshop titled Curating City Experience, held at the Disaster Management conference hall, Secretary (Tourism) Jyoti Kumari appealed to small businesses to reimagine the capital not as a transit stop but as a living canvas of stories, cultures and flavours. The initiative, she said, stems from insights gathered at last month’s UT-level SANGITI conference, where stakeholders flagged the city’s low night-stay figures and limited on-ground engagement.
Heritage, food, folk traditions and migrant memories don’t need five-star infrastructure, just honest storytelling, local knowledge and creative packaging, Kumari told participants. She encouraged them to explore low-capital models like guided heritage walks, cultural samplers and food trails, promising incubation support and access to tourism subsidies.
Tourism Director Azharuddin Quazi reinforced the need for fresh thinking with hard numbers. Most visitors touch down, see the Cellular Jail, watch a sunset at Corbyn’s Cove, and then head to outer islands. Sri Vijaya Puram is still seen as a stopover, not a destination, he noted. But if we offer curated micro-experiences, like kayak canal tours, early morning fish-market photography, Tamil-cuisine demos, we can make tourists stay longer and spend more.
Panelists from the tourism industry backed the shift. Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) South Andaman head Mohd Jadwet pointed to global examples of profitable city tours led by niche guides. Historian Rashida Iqbal proposed route ideas tracing the city’s colonial, tribal and migration layers, from penal colony architecture to Bengali market culture. Ethno-anthropologist Pronob Sircar emphasized the need for community partnerships, particularly with tribal cooperatives, to ensure authenticity and avoid tokenism. Adventure tour operator Vivek Lall added that even simple water-based experiences, like paddle-boarding near Haddo jetty, could appeal to younger visitors.
The interactive workshop saw attendees brainstorm and prototype real-time offerings, from dawn fish auction tours to folk-art storytelling and settler-cuisine pop-ups. Officials pledged assistance in licensing, compliance, digital integration and carrying capacity management.
Crucially, organisers plan to compile all viable ideas into a formal pitch docket, connecting start-ups with funding schemes such as the UT Administration’s start-up subsidy and the Centre’s SWA-Nidhi loan for micro-entrepreneurs. A review in August will assess how many proposals have matured into working pilots, with rollout slated for the next peak tourist season.
If even 10% of tourists stay one extra night in Sri Vijaya Puram, that’s a crores-worth boost to the local economy, said one tourism planner. And we don’t need new hotels or reclaimed land to make it happen, just storytelling and smart execution.
By turning allies into archives and homes into hospitality hubs, the administration hopes to help local start-ups rewrite Sri Vijaya Puram’s tourism script, one walk, one plate, and one story at a time.
