Katamkera has developed a partnership with the indian sustainable Travel Agency “Kabani” to organize sustainable tours and some logistics travel in India.
Kabani Community Tourism & Services is a limited company which encourages social entrepreneurship and social innovation at the village level. They help villagers to market their produce and encourage community involvement in Eco tourism, fair-traded value added village products and the exchange of various skills.
They have been working for the last 10 years with their NGO “Kabani, the Other direction” as a campaign and research organisation to raise awareness amoung their own communities and incoming tourists about the need of a responsible tourism in India to avoid pitfalls of mass tourism development and its impact on the environment and daily life of the local communities. They have supported a first community project in 2007 with the farmers of Wayanad with conducting training programs for partners, developing tour programmes and activities for travelers and opening homestays.
The local communities are the central décision makers and the main Financial beneficiaries of tourism. Kabani has been working with farming and coastal communities to set up their own tourism programs The tourism business is counted as an additional income for the communities and is not the main source of income for them, Kabani keeps 25% to foster and market new community projects and conduct research, campaigns, trainings and product development with local communities. 15% goes to the respective villages’ development fund.