A new tourism regulatory authority of Kerala will be set up by the end of this year, a senior tourism department official said today.
"As per our new tourism policy, the government is about to constitute a Tourism Regulatory Authority. As of now we don't have mandatory regulations with the Tourism department, and they rests with other departments like health and police department," K Rajkumar, Deputy Director, Department of Tourism, Kerala, told reporters here.
"There will be (new) authority where by a single window clearance will be provided by the government wherein all tourism stakeholders will be roped in. We expect the new tourism regulatory authority to be set up by the end of this year (Dec 2018)," added Rajkumar.
"The new tourism policy announced by the CPI-M led LDF government last year envisages setting a new tourism regulatory authority to oversee tourism activities and check unhealthy trends in the sector.
"Backed with a new tourism policy and tourism products, Kerala tourism expects increase in domestic and foreign tourist arrivals to the state this year as compared to 2017," he said.
"During 2017, we had 1.41 crore domestic tourist arrivals in the state while foreign tourists arrivals was 10. 91 lakh generating total revenue of over Rs 33,000 crore.
"In terms of domestic arrivals and for international there is overall increase of tourist arrivals in Kerala in 2017 when compared to 2016," he said.
Speaking after a programme organised to promote Kerala Tourism here, Rajkumar said "this year we are expecting increase of around 10-15 per cent in international arrivals and around 8-10 per cent (growth) for domestic tourists.
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