In his 2025 budget speech, the Finance Minister of Kerala, Mr. K.N. Balagopal, announced the K-Homes scheme, aiming to use unoccupied homes to develop Kerala tourism accommodations.

According to the Working Group Report on Housing as part of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2017-22), there are nearly one million unoccupied houses in Kerala. In this context, the new project is ambitious in repurposing these ‘idle homes’, often referred to as ‘ghost homes’ or ‘dead assets’, into valuable tourism infrastructure.

This article examines the prospects of “K-Homes” as a part of Kerala tourism and the criticism it has elicited from various stakeholders, including homestay owners, regarding the naming, ownership, and financial support provided for the scheme.

Context of K-Homes Scheme

The new project, “K-Homes Initiative”, as mentioned in the budget, aims to develop basic tourism infrastructure by utilizing empty and unoccupied homes across the state, thereby maximizing their utility. In addition to providing revenue for the house owners, the initiative will also help ensure the maintenance and safety of the houses (Government of Kerala 2025).

As the state has been witnessing a changing pattern in migration for education and in search of a better standard of living, which most often results in permanent residency and eventual citizenship, the number of unoccupied homes will continue to increase. From 129,763 student emigrants in 2018, the number has doubled to about 250,000 in 2023, comprising 11.3% of total emigrants from Kerala (Kerala Migration Survey 2023).

During the survey, it was also found that many houses were locked because entire families had migrated. About 4.2 lakh (0.4 million) cases of family migration have also been identified. Many property owners are reluctant to rent or lease their homes, possibly due to concerns about managing the properties and fearing misuse or damage, as these homes were not originally constructed for commercial purposes, which leaves them as dead investments and unused resources (Kerala State Planning Board 2022).

According to the latest housing Census (2011), 10.6% of the total census houses¹ in Kerala, remain vacant, and about 60% of the 12 lakh closed houses in Kerala belonged to non-resident Keralites who have settled abroad. Hence, the rationale for the K Homes scheme is to utilise such properties, as they could significantly boost the state’s tourism infrastructure and help employ people as caretakers and in associated work if the owner is living abroad.

Prospects

According to the Kerala Economic Review 2024, the number of foreign tourists who visited Kerala has increased from 3.5 lakh in 2022 to 6.5 lakh in 2023, registering about an 88 percent increase over the previous period. The number of domestic tourists in 2023 is 2.18 crore, the highest since 2017. Being the pre-COVID period, Kerala received 11.9 lakh foreign tourists in 2019, the highest in 2017-23 (Kerala Tourism Statistics 2023).

The 14th Five-Year Plan has also set a target of an annual growth rate of 15 per cent in domestic arrivals and 10 per cent in foreign arrivals. The above statistics point to the potential of tourist accommodation in the state, especially in the affordable or budget category, considering the number of domestic tourist arrivals.

Where do K-Homes Fit In?

Currently, Kerala tourism has three main kinds of accommodation schemes, which use ‘houses or homes’ specially built for it or otherwise. They are Homestays, Grihasthali—Heritage Buildings, and Serviced Villas.

Homestays are to give an experience of ‘Home’, culture, local practices, and food, among others. As stated on the Kerala Tourism website, it is popular among tourists who want to interact with local culture, lifestyle, social system, and people. It also enables tourism-related job opportunities for the local people.

Grihasthali, according to the website, is any building that is more than 50 years old and bears characteristics of the traditional Kerala architecture. The scheme finds potential in marketing the legacy and heritage as a tourist accommodation unit, which gives a unique experience for the visitors. It can give you a taste of the authentic Keralan lifestyle.

The Serviced Villas, according to the Department of Tourism, aim to provide comfortable stay facilities of standardised high quality to tourists, and to supplement the availability of accommodation in various tourist destinations.

As of 2019, Kerala has 6895 accommodation units—only 5 are Grihasthalis, and just 169 are Serviced Villas (Kerala Tourism 2019). As previously mentioned, there has been a notable increase in tourist arrivals, and with the plan to convert unoccupied houses, K-Homes sees huge prospects.

Given this, there is a rising concern as to where the new K-Homes scheme fits in. The Kerala HATS (Homestay and Tourism Society) raised a problem regarding the naming of the scheme as ‘K-Homes’, as the word ‘home’ signifies a particular purpose; it requires a family where members live together. Concerns were raised about the government’s approach to unoccupied homes and their exclusion from the existing serviced villa scheme. The lack of clarity in distinguishing between K-Homes and serviced villas emphasises the need to address key aspects, such as ownership, operational models, and regulatory frameworks for the new initiative.

Additionally, questions could be raised about the disparity in support, with existing homestay owners reportedly receiving little to no assistance for marketing or business development, while the newly proposed scheme has been allocated ₹5 crore in the upcoming budget.

Best Practices to Improve K-Homes Initiative

Japan’s “Minka² Renovation Program” is a similar initiative to utilise houses that have fallen into disuse or disrepair due to depopulation or urbanisation. It helps to revitalise and preserve the traditional rural homes for tourism, community centres, and rental accommodation. Preserving the country’s architectural heritage on the one hand and addressing the issue of vacant houses in rural areas on the other.

Some of the challenges in the Minka program are related to the process of repurposing homes. Traditional architecture required skilled craftsmen and timber used back then, which are either limited or not available. This increases the cost and time needed for repurposing, compared to prefabricated homes. Being traditional and considering the raw materials used, it also requires maintenance, creating recurring renovation costs. Also, it is easier to get a mortgage for a new home than for a renovated old one. These are potential concerns in the case of reusing unoccupied houses, which are traditional, for the K-Homes initiative (Kotrc 2020).

Thus, the K-Homes scheme can improve the tourism potential and government plans in multiple ways:

• through the initiative of Destination Development, which focuses on investing in infrastructure development in tourist destinations across the state – especially in far-flung areas and unexplored locations.
• through Responsible Tourism, which aims at a mission comprising economic, social, and environmental responsibilities – mainly through employment creation for local communities (Kerala State Planning Board 2022), and also by compensating for the deficit in housing stock in various areas, particularly within the affordable segment.
• The government can also consider public reuse (communal or social facilities, tourist information centres, etc.), commercial reuse (shops and establishments, restaurants, exhibition spaces, etc.), and shared workspaces, capitalising on the remigration and work-from-home culture (Kotrc 2020).

In conclusion, to realise the true potential of the scheme, the government should offer well-defined guidelines after proper consultation with stakeholders, and roll out complementary, not competing, frameworks.

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Footnotes:

1. A ‘census house’ is a building or part of a building used or recognised as a separate unit because of having a separate main entrance from the road or common courtyard or staircase, etc. It may be occupied or vacant. ↩︎
2. “Minka” (民家), which translates to “people’s houses” in Japanese, refers to traditional, vernacular Japanese houses, particularly those found in rural areas, that were the dwellings of farmers, artisans, and merchants. ↩︎

Blog written by Muhammed Ameen K P, Research Intern at Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR).

Views expressed by the author are personal and need not reflect or represent the views of the Centre for Public Policy Research.