God’s Own Country extends tourscape

MUMBAI: Pegged in advertisements as ‘God’s own country,’ the sylvan enclave of Kerala is now being positioned as a 365-day holiday destination. There are also plans to promote new destinations in north Kerala (also known as Malabar) for foreign and domestic tourists. They include Kasargod, Kannur, Wayand, Kozhikode and Malappuram.

The state government will spend Rs 1,000 crore to build tourism-related facilities, especially additional hotel rooms. By next season, two new motifs will be launched: temple tourism and health tourism, which is a big money spinner.

In its promotional activities, the tourism department will highlight the specialities of these regions in Malabar. For example, Kannur is famous for its dance themes. It will also be highlighted that the first cricket match in India was played in this region and that the circus first emerged here, and the Western concept of baking cakes also reached this region first before spreading to other parts of India.

The aim is to extend the state’s tourism calendar. Currently, September-January is the main tourist season in Kerala, with traffic peaking November-January. The state’s prolonged and heavy monsoons make the rest of the year a lean period in terms of tourism. With these efforts they hope to now flag off the tourism season with a new holiday package from April-August, with prices slashed to one-fourth of the current prices.

The tourism mandarins expect tourist arrivals to substantially increase during the earlier lean season. In 2006, Kerala hosted about 4.28 lakh international tourists which was a growth of 23% from the previous year; it also saw an influx of more than 62 lakh domestic travellers. Total revenue earned in 2006 was Rs 9000 crore-plus. These new thrusts bring in at least 10% more domestic travellers and 22% rise in international tourists.

Sanjay Kaul, director, Tourism Department of Kerala: “Maximum tourist arrivals happen in North Kerala. Therefore, this year we will be promoting the Malabar region, which has tremendous tourism options. Domestic travellers usually move around during April to August which we considered as off-season because of the monsoons. However, research shows that this time of the year can also prove to have huge tourism potential. Thereby we will now promote Kerala as an all-year-round tourist destination. Moreover, holiday packages in Kerala are an expensive proposition for domestic travellers. Therefore through our website we will sell discounted holidays packages for the Malabar regions, which will be as little as one-fourth of the current tariff.”

Infrastructure lacunae will have to be addressed. During the peak season, Kerala has a shortage of as many as 18000 hotel rooms. The government is now trying to build more hotels through public partnerships. The Marriott Group of hotels is coming up with a hotel in Kozikode. Renaissance Hotel is building a convention centre in Trivandrum. However, by the end of 2007, there will less than an additional 2000 rooms and therefore the hotel-room crunch will continue.

The maximum influx of foreign tourists is from UK, Germany and France. This year, the Kerala tourism is targeting Singapore, Australia, Sydney and Melbourne. The Kerala tourism department considers US as a more diffused market.