Kerala Travel Mart's 9th edition to focus on 'responsible tourism'

Kerala Tourism's flagship event, the Kerala Travel Mart (KTM), will be held next September and will focus on responsible tourism, said state Tourism Minister A.P. Anil Kumar.

Registration for the biennial event, which has become hugely popular among the buyers and sellers, will begin next month.

Anil Kumar told reporters here on Monday that the KTM has contributed largely to the development of tourism industry in the state.

"As the responsible tourism campaign titled 'God's Own Country, People's Own Tourism', we hope to popularise the concept of responsible tourism among the common man," he said.

KTM brings together business entrepreneurs offering various tourism products and services, including tour operators, hotels, resorts, home stays, houseboats, ayurveda resorts and cultural art centres, on to a single platform and facilitates their meeting and interaction with buyers from around the world.

"As of the present statistics, we have the maximum number of international tourist coming from the United Kingdom which is 17 percent and we have eight percent from the United States. Our aim is to increase the number of tourist from the US in the next two years," said Tourism Secretary G.Kamala Vardhana Rao.