Weaving tourism and textiles into one ecosystem

Since the pandemic, Deepa Krishnan’s followers on Instagram have become accustomed to her soothing voice explaining a traditional weave or embroidery, often filmed inside The Magic Room in Mumbai’s Sion, her space to exhibit and learn about Indian crafts and textiles. The pieces, sourced from artisan groups across Gujarat, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and more states, are part of an ecosystem she has built over nearly two decades linking tourism, crafts and livelihoods.

Krishnan is the founder of Magic Tours of India, a guided travel company launched in 2006 that now operates across more than two dozen cities with over 300 experiences, from heritage walks and food explorations to village and textile trails. Many programmes are co-created with local communities. The company also trains and employs youth from Mumbai and Delhi’s informal settlements as guides.

Her business philosophy is that responsibly designed tours must also be commercially viable to generate sustained community benefit. Rather than treating social responsibility as a separate initiative, she embeds it into everyday business practice, from fair sourcing from artisans, timely payments, moderate margins and patience to turn profitable. Her crafts venture took four years to break even.

“I have been trying to build social responsibility into the DNA of my work, without making a big fuss about it,” she says. 

When inbound tourism collapsed overnight during the Covid-19 pandemic, livelihoods that depended on her were at risk, including employees, guides, village partners, craftspersons. Krishnan sold her apartment in Chennai to sustain salaries while launching The Magic Room, pivoting to domestic tourism and textile retail. The two streams now reinforce each other financially while supporting more than 500 artisans. “You need to be open to new ideas, to look dispassionately at your strengths, and find ways you can leverage them into opportunities,” she says.  

Beyond tourism, Krishnan’s  work includes farming collectives and livelihood initiatives in tribal villages in Jawhar. Besides leading Abhyudaya, an education programme for children from low-income communities, she worked earlier as a business consultant to ABN AMRO, Barclays, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Standard Chartered Bank. 

Krishnan is cautious about language around empowerment. Communities she works with, she says, already possess dignity and agency; tourism’s role is to engage with them respectfully as equals rather than presume to be their saviours. 

“What stands out most to me about Deepa’s work is the genuine intent that underpins all she does,” says Sudha Meruva, a former director at a multinational company. “As someone who has engaged with both her tourism and textile ventures, I have witnessed the care with which she bridges people to authentic stories, skilled artisans, and vibrant communities. She leads with integrity and showed remarkable resilience in supporting her network during challenging times of the pandemic. Her journey reflects how businesses grounded in trust and respect can create meaningful impact beyond mere commerce.”

Published on: Friday, February 27, 2026, 05:07 AM IST