We had a long weekend, as usual we were off to our village which is about 60 KM from Kochi, a place full of rubber plantations, pineapple, pepper, coffee, Jack fruit and all tropical plants and trees.

While I was chit chatting with a person who manages a relatively large property and a mansion in my village neighbourhood, I was surprised to hear that this property is listed in airbnb. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/548979?s=gqUX . Thinking about it I realized Kerala has all the potential to be the leading vacation rental destination due to the large number of properties being unoccupied as the owners live in other countries. Look at some of the interesting statistics

A new survey conducted by the state government’s Department of Non-Resident Keralites’ Affairs (Norka) and the Bureau of Economics and Statistics has put the Non-Resident Keralites (NRK) count at 1.62 million. The state’s resident population, according to the 2011 census, is 33.38 million. In other words, non-residents make up about 5 per cent of the state’s total population. The survey was undertaken as part of the Sixth Economic Census by the Central Statistical Organisation of the federal ministry of statistics and programme implementation.

Of the NRKs, a large majority are based in the Gulf countries, which accounted for 88 per cent of the total NRKs. Within the Gulf countries, UAE with 573,289 NRKs and Saudi Arabia with 450,229 NRKs accounted for the most number of non-resident Keralites. The survey showed 78,357 Keralites living in the US and 45,264 based in the UK. Another finding of the survey is that nearly 5 million people living in the state are dependent on remittances from their family members based abroad. The survey did not reveal the quantum of annual remittances, but projections for remittances this year into Kerala are in the range of Rs 700 billion (11.66 Billion USD).

(Ref: http://gulfnews.com/news/world/india/kerala-nri-count-put-at-1-6-million-in-latest-survey-1.1249932)

Apparently more than 50% of these people own properties and houses in their home land which they use only when they visit India. It is tough to maintain such big properties and channels like airbnb provide them this wonderful opportunity to make money by renting out these properties as well as maintaining it well.

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