Kerala focuses on new avenues to attract visitors

As part of its strategy to increase footfalls of visitors in the state, Kerala Tourism is eyeing new vistas.

Besides launching various online and offline marketing initiatives, Kerala Tourism has identified new avenues that could help the state tourism industry grow.

The officials of Kerala Tourism, who were here to participate in a road show organised to attract visitors from Punjab, revealed the state tourism had identified corporate sector as the next big thing to drive tourists in the state.

The officials added, apart from corporate sector, they were also looking to attract tourists to the state through adventure tourism, convention tourism, honeymoon tourism and farm tourism.

In 2008 Kerala registered arrival of 598,000 foreign tourists and about 8 million domestic tourists.

Although the state has been registering 10-12 per cent growth in arrivals of foreign tourists, officials believe figures for last year may not reflect this because of the global slowdown that might have impact on number of offshore visitors.

To overcome the recession impact and to increase the domestic inflow, officials maintained Kerala Tourism was following an aggressive strategy. Last year it organised 11 city partnership meets to expand its reach and find new domestic trade partners.

The officials said to further strengthen their foothold among the domestic travelers, Kerala Tourism would add one new domestic destination each year to organise the partnership meets.

Besides, Kerala Tourism has also partnered with Jet Airways to keep a reserve of 20 seats at a discounted tariff in every Jet Airways carrier that flies in to the state.

The officials maintained the department had also launched various online initiatives to promote brand Kerala Tourism. They said that initiation of Logln.Kerala was one such step.

The website is a one-stop travel website for billions of netizens worldwide who plan to visit Kerala. The site engages features like online hotel finder and online room reservation that helps the tourist identify packages that suit his choice and wallet.Another online promotion initiative was tie-up with Google for search marketing to benefit from online marketing.