KOCHI: The two-day diaspora meet “Ente Naadu” (My country) that concluded here Wednesday is expected to bring in 10 billion rupees from expatriates in joint ventures with resident partners, according to Home and Tourism Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
Some 550 nonresident Keralites from as many as 43 countries attended the event billed as a platform for the Kerala diaspora to invest in tourism projects in the state.
“The two-day meet has set the ball rolling. Through this meeting, prospective investors had a feel of the various projects that were showcased. We expect a total investment of more than 10 billion rupees to take place in the coming years through various projects,” Balakrishnan told reporters here. Kerala Tourism, India’s only tourism super brand, also launched a new project called “Visit Kerala Year 2009” to attract tourists from new markets, especially in the Middle East.
“We received some 550,000 international travelers last year but only five percent of them were from the Gulf region where nearly two million people from our state work. This is a huge but unexplored market,” the minister said. “Kerala Tourism will also conduct road shows in major Gulf cities to attract Arab tourists”.
Kerala Tourism’s destination marketing strategy will also take in new technologies like the Internet, blogs and mobile telephone marketing. NRKs can earn reward points by referring foreign friends to the service providers back home through the official website www.keralatourism.org where they can also create their home pages. The reward points can be redeemed as air tickets or similar products that suit the diaspora.
“Kerala is Asia’s fastest growing destination and one of the 10 paradises of the world listed by the National Geographic. So far, that reputation has propelled a healthy tourism industry,” the minister said claiming that the cancellations after the Mumbai terror strike were temporary.
According to industry sources, 25 to 30 percent slump in tourist arrivals was expected this year and hotels and resorts in Kerala’s beaches, backwaters and hill stations were flooded with cancellations immediately after the terror attacks in Mumbai last month. The government hopes to offset this by attracting more tourists from the Gulf. “In 2007, foreign travelers increased by 20.37 percent. The early signs for this year are good as well, with the figures from the first half of the year showing a growth of 19.23 percent. All these surpass the World Travel and Tourism Council’s prediction of 11.34 percent annual growth from 2004 to 2013 and we are confident that we would make up for the temporary setback,” he added.
The government’s new initiatives like Ente Naadu, which aims at bringing in expatriate Keralites worldwide to take advantage of the huge prospects in this sector, also received applause from the industry. “Kerala’s tourism potential has been tapped mainly by corporate houses within India and abroad. It is a great idea to involve expatriates and one which has the potential to accelerate tourism growth in the state,” said EM Najeeb, chairman of the Kerala Travel Mart Society.
