Govt in tourism push, industry unsure

Thiruvananthapuram: Even as the state government has made masks mandatory and said that social distancing has to be followed in public places as a precautionary measure against Covid-19, the tourism department is on a marketing spree.
Tourism department officials, including principal secretary (tourism) K S Srinivas, tourism director P B Nooh and additional director Prem Krishnan will travel to London, Dublin, New York, New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Zurich, Geneva, Madrid, Milan, and Berlin to attend various international trade fairs. The trips have been scheduled from January 22 -March 9.
The idea is to “make Kerala tourism’s presence felt in the international market”, “to reposition the brand image and proclaim that the state is back and safe to travel” after the pandemic, as per the orders issued by the tourism department.
While the state government is eyeing trade fairs as a potential occasion for official visits abroad, the Centre thinks otherwise. As per the Union finance ministry’s guidelines for officials for foreign trips, participation of officials in international fairs, exhibitions, workshops, and conferences should be discouraged.
The government has also decided to splurge on advertising the state brand in international TV and on websites. It has sanctioned Rs 2.36 crore for airing advertisements in CNN International (Rs 1.24 crore for 4,080 seconds of airtime) and in Sky News (Rs 75.67 lakh for 2,550 seconds of airtime). In addition, another Rs 1.36 crore will be spent on digital advertisements on as many as five web portals based in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.
Though the government figures that sending representatives to international trade fairs would boost the tourism sector, the industry does not seem to agree. “ Markets like Spain, Germany, and the US are already mature. We need to think of new avenues based on the industry reality. Markets like Russia and Poland have high potential. At the same time, the tourism infrastructure in the state needs a serious intervention,” said vice-president of Kerala travel mart and chairman of the Kerala chapter of the Indian association of tour operators, James Kodianthara.
The MD of Kerala Voyages India George Scaria narrated an incident during the Christmas-New Year season when tourists who arrived at Kochi did not find the taxi they had booked in advance from the tour operator and had to approach the police station for help.