God’s Own Country, Kerala witnessed an increase in
tourist arrivals, revenue and the number of rooms during 2014, said Tourism
Minister A.P. Anil Kumar.
He said final figures for the calendar year 2014 are
being finalized. Kerala Tourism is readying a new plan for boosting tourism in
the fiscal starting April 1.
Minister said "The figures for the first three
quarters of 2014 showed a jump in both arrivals and revenue, though the
industry suffered a setback for a while in the last quarter on account of the
bird flu scare. But, on the whole, for the year, there has been an increase and
very shortly we will be releasing the complete figures,"
"We will concentrate on markets like China, and
Middle East. These are the areas where there is a huge market waiting for us to
tap. Already we have made inroads into the Middle East. China is one market
where we will be holding road shows," Anil Kumar said.
The peak Kerala tourist season starts towards the
last quarter in the calendar year and tails off around the first week of
February.
"Over the years, investment in the tourism
industry has been growing at a good pace with the total number of rooms in the
state growing from 40,000 in 2010 to 75,000 in 2014. But we need more rooms and
this where there is a business opportunity for people to turn their homes into
home stays. We will see that the certification process for home stays is done
quickly," said Kumar.
On the much-talked about seaplane operations, he
said that talks are going on to resolve whatever issues are there as this is
one area which offers a lot of scope.
"We are now all set to announce promotional
schemes for the benefit of tourists as we are confident that the private sector
will also come forward to give special offers for all tourists visiting the
state in the one year campaign that begins in April. The government sector has
already cleared this proposal. Competition is there for us from Sri Lanka and
we are also speaking with airline companies to give special fares to tourists.
Already two private airlines are doing it," added Kumar.
No comments:
Post a Comment