Kerala   

Hitting the road to woo domestic tourists

Wooing tourists: A cultural show organised by Kerala Tourism in New Delhi to market the destination and its tourism products.

Road shows are ideal platforms to showcase products and services, interact and team up with stakeholders and enhance business prospects. Kerala Tourism is using this platform effectively in its ongoing national campaign to increase inflow of domestic tourists. The road shows it held at Ahmedabad, Pune, Vadodara, Chandigarh and Delhi witnessed heavy turnouts.

Apart from showcasing the unique tourism products of God’s Own Country to those in the travel trade, media and tourists, the 2008 edition of the road shows are also aimed at penetrating the domestic markets to increase tourist arrivals to the State in the coming months.

The offers under the Dream Season campaign have been extended till October as part of the marketing strategy. The effort is to woo the price-conscious tourists during the Pooja and Navaratri holidays, says a tourism official.

To derive maximum mileage and for the convenience of stakeholders and tourism officials, the road shows were organised along with national travel trade fairs such as Travel Trade Fair (TTF) and India International Travel Mart (IITM) in the cities. Also, Kerala Tourism is directly organising the road shows; something usually left to event management groups.

Director, Kerala Tourism, M. Sivasankar leads the delegation from the State. Mr. Sivasankar told The Hindu that organising the road shows was a learning experience for the department staff. For the first time, the event was being held at the properties of the same hotel group to bring down expenses.

VCDs and DVDs on Kerala exhibited at the road shows had evoked good response. “We have decided to exhibit 25 ready-to-market souvenirs short-listed by Kerala Tourism in the forthcoming road shows,” he added.

In addition to presentations about Kerala Tourism, media interaction, cultural show and screening of films by Santosh Sivan, a six-hour long interactive session has been set apart in the business session.

Tour operators are invited to participate in the meet and network with trade partners from Kerala.

Kerala is trying to overcome the limited access from northern States to Kerala, a major factor for the poor inflow of tourists from Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. The Tourism authorities have also decided to aggressively market Kerala Tourism to tap the high-spending domestic tourists from Chandigarh and neighbouring areas.

In Chandigarh and Delhi, Kathakali, Mohiniyattom, Thiruvathira and Kalaripayattu were presented in the cultural show that was choreographed by Mohinyattom exponent Jayaprabha Menon.

As many as 30 representatives from the trade, including leading players such as Leela Kovalam, CGH Earth and Taj, Somatheeram, participated.

Over 120 companies participated in Delhi and 23 in Chandigarh.

Road shows are slated to be held in Hyderabad (July 29), Kolkotta (July 31), Bangalore (August 26), Chennai (August 27) and Mumbai (August 29).

S. Anil Radhakrishnan

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Port workers to go on strike
e-literacy
Hitting the road to woo domestic tourists
Treat for bibliophiles, in measure
Daily ride
Always at the receiving end
Victim of a protest
Rolling sideways
Scorpio V-Series from Mahindra
Škoda Fabia
Police training centre in Kollam
New rule, same result
Cinema
Miscreants damage ACP’s vehicle
IUML to vote for UPA regime

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu