In Focus

On the literary trail

Tourists combine their love for literature with travel, exploring festivals and places immortalised in fiction

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  • Published: 00:00 August 15, 2010
  • In Focus

A new breed of tourists is visiting India, trailing favourite authors as they seek out novel locations or simply turning into literary junketeers, hopping from one festival to another.

The annual Jaipur Literature Festival is already a must-visit on the itinerary of book lovers and with Kerala set to host the first edition of the international Hay Festival in November this year, India is gearing up to be on the map for enthusiasts who are combining their love for literature with wanderlust.

"Around 20,000 people, including foreign visitors, turn up at the Jaipur Literature Festival every year," says Nikhil Ganju, Director, Marketing, TripAdvisor, India. "Another major event in India is the Kolkata Book Fair, which attracts about two million people on an average."

Lyndy Cooke, Executive Director, Hay Festival, says, "We are very excited to celebrate the Hay Festival in India and Kerala became the obvious choice for its high literacy rate and popular tourist destinations. The festival will also create a platform to present Indian writing to an international audience.

"Literature can be linked to tourism. At Hay-on-Wye, we sell almost 200,000 tickets every year and 80 per cent of the crowd are visitors who come to Wales. They live in hotels, bed and breakfast lodges, in a 100-km radius of the lush hamlet."

The area surrounding a literary festival can add to its appeal for visitors. "Touristy places also help to attract people to literary festivals," says Binno K. John, who organises the Kovalam Literature Festival in Kerala. The festival's third edition this October will host celebrated Pakistani authors Fatima Bhutto, Mohammed Hanif and H.M. Naqvi among other international literary giants.

Sanjoy K. Roy of Teamworks, which worked to bring Hay to Kerala, agrees. "It is easier to sell Kerala as a destination because it is well known. With the Hay Festival, we hope to create a literary event in south India that will draw people to India."

India has a rich literary tradition to capitalise on. In Himachal Pradesh there is a proposal to consider developing sites along the Hindustan-Tibet road where Mumbai-born author Rudyard Kipling stayed and penned novels such as the classic Kim.

"We had proposed to call it the Kipling trail after the famous author, who is said to have stayed at various places along the Shimla-Kinnaur route," says Avay Shukla, who was Additional Chief Secretary, Forest Department of Himachal Pradesh, when he forwarded the proposal in 2008.

Historian Raja Bhasin, who has conducted guided tours for tourists in Himachal Pradesh, says, "Some groups have specific interest in Rudyard Kipling. We did readings from his book at places where we thought the author would have stayed or passed through.

"There are places that captured his imagination. The cave where the lama stayed is said to exist even today in the Spiti mountains [in the Himalayas]. Similarly, Kipling had set many stories within Shimla and is believed to have stayed at various forest guest houses, some of which are present today."

Literary tourism

Earlier this year, Indian writers such as Gulzar, Chetan Bhagat, Bulbul Sharma and Omair Ahmad were joined by international names such as British author Patrick French as well as local writers and poets from Bhutan for a three-day festival titled Mountain Echoes in Thimphu. "Obliquely, the festival, which has a separate segment on travel writing, focused on literary tourism that has become a new genre of tourism," says Mita Kapur of Siyahi, which organised the event in May.

Author and co-founder and director of the Jaipur Literature Festival, Namita Gokhale, says, "Jaipur has been a huge inspiration for other models. If you are open to the literary expression, it helps you understand the people and culture of a place in a deeper way. Otherwise, it is just a virtual holiday."

Hay Festival

The Hay Festival takes place every year in Hay-on-Wye, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales. Writers, artists, comedians and everyone who loves books get together to celebrate the literary world.

The Hay festival in Kerala will be in November this year and involve a three-day programme of events, which will include authors and speakers from India and across the world.

Literary holidays can have a positive impact on tourism revenue. Canada-based tourism professional Stephen Burnett says, "Often we discover that literature tourism is one of the supporting branches of cultural tourism, and depending on how robust the programme is, it can also be the dominant motivating factor in the consumer's travel decision."

Burnett says traditionally, the UK attracts many tourists with a taste for literature. "The homes of Beatrix Potter and William Wordsworth have attracted legions of loyal followers of Peter Rabbit and Britain's Poet Laureate."

For more information log on to www.hayfestival.com

— PTI

Hay Festival

The Hay Festival takes place every year in Hay-on-Wye, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales. Writers, artists, comedians and everyone who loves books get together to celebrate the literary world.

The Hay festival in Kerala will be in November this year and involve a three-day programme of events, which will include authors and speakers from India and across the world.

For more details log on to www.hayfestival.com

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