Kerala Tourism to sign MoU with St Petersburg

Kerala Tourism and St Petersburg's tourism department will sign a MoU to promote tourist inflow from the second-largest Russian city to Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi.
A recent meeting between state Tourism Secretary Kamala Vardhana Rao and Consul General of India in St Petersburg, Arun Kumar Sharma, with Rimma Sachinova, Deputy Chairman, St Petersburg Tourism, decided to sign an agreement in this regard.
The MoU is expected to give a big fillip to tourist arrivals to Kerala from the historic city of St Petersburg, a release said here today.
Kerala Tourism has had a busy schedule in Russia, with a road show conducted in St Petersburg on September 21 that followed the "OTDYKH Leisure 2015", a four-day International Trade Fair for travel and tourism held in Moscow, it said.

The road show, which hosted trade and media meetings, saw huge footfalls from the Russian trade fraternity.
"We have received a positive response from Russians. They have showed great interest in knowing more about our state," state Tourism Minister A P Anil Kumar said.
Rao said the tourist arrivals from Russia were 35,010 in 2014 and with the road show, the state expects a perceptible increase in the arrivals of Russian tourists.