Tamil Nadu tailor made vacation, India

Planet

By supporting locally owned hotels and homestays we are helping to provide employment for local communities. All of the accommodation owners on this tour are extremely proud of their strong policies regarding the environment and ecotourism.

Cardamom House is also has a great location for birding thanks to a large lake in the area. The house has 7 guest bedrooms and is situated outside a small village near the town of Dindigul. It is owned by a retired British GP and is an ideal stop for people who are interested in staying off the beaten track or birds.

Heritage Hotel – this Indian owned hotel was originally the British Madurai Club with the Club House designed by the world renowned Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa. It has a good position slightly away from the busy center of town and is surrounded by 17 acres of grounds, which still contain the oldest banyan tree know in Tamil Nadu.

Visalam and Isai Karai are part of CGH Earth which is a group of hotels that has won many awards for their environmental policies. The family that own and manage the group are fully committed to responsible tourism and their hotels have a wide range of environmentally friendly features including – water harvesting, organic gardens for vegetables, worm farms, bio-gas converters etc. Visalam was built in the 1930s and was the ancestral home of a local trading family. The conversion to a hotel was carried out extremely sympathetically and the building retains its original features.

All of our customers are supplied with detailed information about their vacation. We supply general advice relevant to all customers as well as more specific facts about your particular tour. These documents offer our customers lots of advice and guidance including how to obtain an Indian Visa, which immunisations are recommended, how much to tip people, how to dress appropriately and how to behave in National Parks.

People

The ground handling of this tour is provided by our local agent and we supply him with more than 90% of his turnover. All of the drivers and staff are local people. Thus we have fifteen local families that are directly financially reliant upon us. Our drivers have a contract and are paid a monthly wage. This is very unusual in South India where most drivers are normally employed on a commission-only basis (not easy for such seasonal work).

All of the guides we use are local. Tailor-made vacations cater for couples or small groups and this means that our customers have the opportunity to interact with the locals.

Gratitude in Pondicherry, used a local company and workforce, to restore the house using every traditional method. New portions had to be added and it was a natural choice to make it exactly with the same techniques. The work used local tradesman, and over three years of planning, modifying, re-designing is now more beautiful than it has ever been.