BUILDING WITH CARE: KOKO’S REGENERATIVE VISION FOR KERALA

Kochattante Kolayi (KOKO), founded by Prakash Varma, is reimagining tourism in Kerala’s Perumkulam by blending ecological restoration, cultural storytelling, and community-led design. Rooted in India’s second Book Village, the initiative seeks to create a regenerative destination where biodiversity thrives, traditions endure, and visitors leave with deeper connections to place and purpose.  

Tourism has long been measured by numbers—how many visitors arrive, how much revenue is generated, how many rooms are filled. Yet Prakash Varma, founder of Kochattante Kolayi (KOKO), believes this arithmetic misses the true cost of development. “If water bodies vanish, biodiversity declines, young people move away, and local knowledge fades, can we really call that progress?” he asks.  

It is this question that underpins KOKO’s philosophy of regenerative destinations. Unlike conventional tourism, which often prioritises spectacle and scale, regenerative tourism is defined by what it leaves behind: healthier ecosystems, stronger communities, valued livelihoods, and visitors who depart with a deeper understanding of the land and its stories.  

KOKO’s journey began on a rubber plantation but is steadily evolving into a regenerative village destination. In Perumkulam—Kerala’s first and India’s second Book Village—the project is restoring wetlands, reviving frog habitats, reintroducing paddy cultivation, and celebrating cultural identity alongside nature. Here, ecological revival is inseparable from storytelling, with the imagined village elder Kochattan guiding the narrative. Kochattan’s voice rekindles the spirit of rural Kerala, where the land listens, traditions linger, and stories return home.  

The initiative is deliberately slow, resisting the rush of commercial tourism. “We are not building fast. We are building with care,” Varma explains. That care manifests in countless small decisions: planting native trees, reviving ponds, designing quiet visitor experiences rooted in everyday village life, and collaborating with local communities to revive traditional skills.  

Identity and experience design, led by Satva Design, ensures that KOKO’s aesthetic reflects its ethos—gentle, immersive, and rooted in place. Visitors are invited not to consume but to participate, to witness the unfolding of a village where culture and ecology are intertwined.  

The vision is clear: to place Perumkulam on the global tourism map not through spectacle but through care, culture, and connection. It is an ambition that demands patience, collaboration, and resilience. KOKO is not yet a destination; it is an evolving experience, a regenerative experiment in how tourism can nurture rather than exhaust.  

In a world where tourism often leaves scars, KOKO offers a different path—one where the measure of success is not crowds but continuity, not profit but purpose. It is a reminder that the future of travel may lie not in faster journeys or grander resorts, but in villages where stories and soil are restored together.