THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala is banking heavily on its three-million-strong diaspora spread across more than 30 countries to tide over the crisis in the tourism sector induced by global economic meltdown.
Last year, foreign tourist arrivals showed an increase of 20.37 percent while domestic tourists registered and increase of 5.5 percent making the state one of the fastest growing destinations in the world. The growth in earnings from the industry (Rs114 billion) showed an all-time high of 25.28 percent. However, the hospitality industry that employs more than one million people in Kerala is already feeling the pinch of the global financial trouble.
The state Tuesday launched a new project, Ente Nadu, or my country, to encourage the nonresident Keralites (NRK) to bring tourists with them from the country where they work for vacationing in Kerala. “Yes, there is a recession in tourism sector as well and we should address the problem. There was a 20 percent slump in tourist arrivals during the past two months,” Home and Tourism Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said.
Planners in the government who fixed a target of Rs12 billion in revenue for the current year are upset. By 2013, the state was to create 1.2 million additional jobs and revenue of Rs560 billion. But the industry has entered a sluggish pace for the first time. Road shows were held in at least 10 Indian metros to bring in more internal tourists to make up for the loss of the foreigners and they were to go to tier II cities now. But results were not good so far thanks to the prohibitive airfares and limited connectivity.
The tiny state, however, has three international airports well connected with the Gulf capitals and authorities feel this could be the greatest strength for the industry to grow in this area.
“We now urge each NRK to bring at least one holidaymaker to their home state. They are the brand ambassadors of Kerala Tourism,” the minister said. “We’ll give incentives to both individuals and community bodies on par with the tour operators.” The Kerala Tourism, India’s only tourism superbrand and Asia’s “new age destination” as its brochures say, has already started sending out invitations to the diaspora forums across the world to participate in the project.
“Having played a key role in spreading the social and cultural heritage of our state around the world, we now look forward to the wholehearted support of NRKs in helping us script Kerala Tourism’s success story,” the minister said.
The project provides NRKs with a host of opportunities to help contribute toward the growth of the tourism sector.
The Tourism Department is also conducting an NRK meet, which will be held at Le Meridien in Kochi on December 23 and 24. Balakrishnan, who launched the meet’s website www.keralatourism.org/ nrkmeet at a function here Tuesday, also urged the NRKs to convert their houses back home into “homestays,” a concept that Kerala Tourism perfected to sell the brand aggressively.
