Will inflation and economic slowdown reduce tourist inflow to Kerala this year?
While tour operators fear a dip this year as rising costs are forcing people to put their travel plans on the back burner, Kerala’s tourism department has chosen to allay such fears.
Speaking to reporters here on Tuesday as part of the tourism promotion tour by the God’s Own Country, Kerala’s tourism director M Sivasankar said he was optimistic of an increase in the tourist inflow.
Quoting statistics, Sivankar said: “At a time when tourist inflow in other states was falling for various reasons, we were seeing an increase. While foreign tourist arrivals in 2007 was 515,808 (a 20.37 per cent increase over the previous year), domestic tourists touched 6.6 million (a 5.92 per cent rise over the previous year).”
The total revenue earned from tourism in 2007 was Rs 11,433 crore, of which foreign exchange earnings was Rs 2,640 crore.
Going by the tourist arrivals in the first quarter of 2008, the inflow is unlikely to decrease, he said. While the total foreign tourist arrivals during January-March was 234,209 (an increase of 20.50 per cent over the corresponding period of 2007), domestic tourist arrivals registered a 15.04 per cent increase compared to the corresponding period in 2007.
“We have been registering an average growth of 20 per cent for the last five years. We have doubled our marketing efforts this year to draw more people to the state,” Sivasankar said.
On the impact of the hike in air fares on the tourism sector, Sivasankar said nearly 80 per cent of the domestic tourists come from neighbouring Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. A majority of these travel by road to Kerala, he added.
