kochi to preserve the cultural and aesthetic history of rural and small towns responsible tourism mission rtm is gearing up to optimise the participation of local communities and artisan groupsas part of the brainstorming and ideation rtm organized its first districtlevel workshop in the city on friday giving emphasis to participation of locals in the tourism sector the workshop which saw more than 100 people from various sectors ranging from artists to traditional handicraft artisans had sessions introducing the basics of responsible tourism and peoples participation for planning and empowerment pepper projectthrough the implementation of ideas and projects formed by the active participation of the public we are trying to develop the state to a 10day or even 20day destination experiential tourism which lies in the core of the mission is the way to develop the prospect said roopesh kumar state coordinator of rtmas many as 11 new destinations across the state are being included in the second phase of the rtm activities towards developing tourism with optimum participation of the local communitiestourism grama sabhas comprising 200 members each will be formed in these destinations for chalking out a plan that is unique and feasible for the locality and the people the aim is to find and expound the scope of tourism in the activities native to the locale be it farming pottery coir making mat braiding so on and so forth and thus create better livelihood and generate employment in a way beneficial to the public as well as the nature kumar addedregistration of artists and skilled and unskilled labourers for art and human resource mapping was also facilitated during the eventthe district tourism promotion council dtpc will also be actively contributing to the cause of developing tourism in the remote corners of the district as well as to better the existent tourism prospectscruise tourism which is a large touristpuller for the city would be put to full use for developing responsible tourism in the panchayats around the city said vijayakumar s dtpc secretaryan action plan for districtlevel rt activities will be drawn based on the workshop