Think Kerala and images of placid backwaters, the beaches, fishermen, tall coconut trees, fish curry and banana chips, Kathakali dancers, Kalaripayattu artistes, Ayurvedic spas, boat races... are all vividly replayed in your mind.
By next year, Kerala hopes to add adventure tourism to it’s list of offerings, giving some serious competition to Karnataka.
In the past decade, the beauty of ‘god’s own country’ was well captured and presented to the world through an aggressive marketing strategy, that raked in the moolah, courtesy foreign visitors. But in the last couple of years, the magic seemed to have waned, though domestic travellers increased.
However, the Kerala Tourism officials were quick to sense the need to pull up their socks and launched a road trip across India to salvage their place as one among the most preferred destinations of India.
During one such road trip in Bangalore last week, Metrolife caught up with Secretary, Kerala Tourism Dr Venu V, who spoke about the road ahead for them.
“Bangalore is the most important metro as far as marketing is concerned. A significant part of domestic travel is from Karnataka and Bangalore forms the bulk of that.
For our road trip here, we have brought a large number of our partners for discussions as Karnataka is an important market for them. The road show is our attempt to build a newer, better image of Kerala for the discerning tourist from this State,” said Dr Venu.
To a question on which section of travellers they are now targeting, Dr Venu said, “All sections are important to us. As on December 2006, we had about four lakh international visitors and close to 60 lakh domestic travellers, a third of which visited pilgrim centres. Leisure travellers constituted 25 per cent of that number.
Now we are trying to build a strong base in the corporate market with activities and programmes that appeal to the younger active generation. For Bangalore, we are trying to offer Kerala as a destination for a long weekend. In the international sector, we will concentrate on Italy, Spain and Australia.”
Asked for his opinion on Karnataka’s tourism potential, Dr Venu said he loves travelling to Karnataka, especially it’s coastal belt, which is still vastly untapped for its tourism potential. Besides that, he said Karnataka has promoted it’s wildlife sanctuaries well.
“What you need is a marketing package to match what’s available.” He added that Kerala’s brand equity has been built with exclusive products such as Ayurvedic centres, the backwaters, its beaches, etc.
“We also have many companies offering adventure tourism nowadays. But Kerala government needs to get its act together and we are seriously working with the Forest Department. By next year, we will definitely have something exciting in place,” he said.
