Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, India implemented a nationwide lockdown in March 2020. Since then, only a few hotels have been allowed to reopen but their revenue has dropped dramatically.
Faced with this situation, the Aveda resort, which used to attract a large number of domestic and international tourists, in Kerala, India, had to temporarily change the purpose of using its 150 m long, 15 m wide swimming pool into a fish farm. Among the hotels and resorts in India, not many places have a swimming pool that can hold 7.5 million liters of water and can be converted to another purpose like the one at Aveda.
150m long swimming pool inside Aveda resort
Sharing about the current situation, the head of the resort said that due to lack of revenue, 16,000 two-month-old pearl spot fish were released into the pool. This pearl spot fish takes about eight months to reach adult size. This is a popular ingredient in dishes in South India and the Middle East. The estimated value of about 4 tons of pearl spot fish being raised in the resort pool could be up to 40,000 USD on the market when harvested in November.
Although this “makeshift” farm cannot compensate for the losses caused by the pandemic, the resort head hopes that the money from selling fish can help pay basic bills so that the business can “stay afloat” until tourists return.
Even so, the Aveda resort also plans to keep its pearl spot fish farming operations going even when tourism recovers.
In India, the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic has caused losses to the tourism industry this year to reach 15 trillion rupees. This is a three-fold increase compared to the estimated loss of 5 trillion rupees given in March. At least three-quarters of tourism businesses in India have also been affected by the pandemic.
