The Hindu : Kerala News : International media campaign to woo tourists

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 04, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

International media campaign to woo tourists

By John L. Paul

KOCHI, JAN 3. The Department of Tourism, Kerala, has launched an international campaign through global television channels to drive home the message that beaches and coastal resorts in the State are safe.

The Tourism Director, T.O. Sooraj, said the department had approached CNN, BBC and National Geographic to telecast the ground-level situation on the Kerala coast, in the wake of the seismic waves devouring nearly 200 people in the State. "We have sent videos of tourists from Europe and the U.S. visiting beaches and resorts in Kovalam and Alappuzha. We recorded their interviews and sent them to the television channels. The channels would telecast these records in a couple of days," he said.

Mr. Sooraj said around 10 per cent of bookings in hotels and beach resorts in the State had been cancelled in the wake of the disaster. "Most of those who cancelled the bookings were high-end tourists (those whom Vision 2025 of the Department of Tourism aims at), who stay here for over a week and spend an average of $ 275 every day here," he said.

The threat of epidemics in the coast and the warning of the possibility of another tsunami strike had added to tourists' fears. The television propaganda also aims to rebut this presumption. In addition, our strategy is to woo those who had planned to visit the worst-hit areas such as Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and Maldives, for leisure and massage, Mr Sooraj said.

Hill stations

Even those who had come to India prior to the tsunami strike had shifted base to hill stations in the State, with the result that room occupancy was almost 100 per cent in places such as Munnar and Wagamon. The tsunami strike came at a time when there was over 80 per cent room occupancy in most hotels in the State.

Fifty per cent of the bookings were cancelled in the Cherai Beach Resort. "Being a beach-side property, the resort had to be closed down for five days, in the wake of the scare created by lashing of high waves on the beach. A group of tourists who had booked 15 rooms cancelled it a few days back. Many tourists do not know that most of the coastal tourist spots in the State had not been affected by the attack," says N. Madhu of the resort.

The warning of a possibility of a second attack created panic among tourists, making them review their plans to travel to Kerala, says Thomas Rulin, sales and marketing manager (Kerala) of the Taj Group of Hotels. "We have received some cancellations and there are a flurry of enquiries from tourists whether Kerala was safe to travel. The Government should get pro-active and initiate damage-control measures, as tourist inflow sustains lakhs of people in the hospitality, travel, handicrafts and related sectors," he says.

The director (Business Development), of Le Meridien, Kochi, Karan Singh Bhati says the hotel has been rather unaffected. This is mainly owing to the fact that the hotel is also a venue for national and international conventions and conferences and a place where airline crew, corporates and domestic tourists stay. We are not dependant on any single segment for our revenue, he says.

"What we need is an all-out effort to regain the confidence of tourists. The media can play a major role in this. There has not been any mass cancellation," says George Dominic, director, cgh earth.

Anoop Skaria of Kashi Art Cafe, a tourist haunt in Fort Kochi, says that unlike backpackers, high-spending tourists are hyper-sensitive about safety. The tsunami will have a lasting impact on the tourism scene of Kerala, particularly beach resorts and house boats, he says. Jyoti Kumar of Kerala Connections says that U.S. tourists are more wary of calamities than Europeans. Measures have to be taken to get their confidence, he says.

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