The Hindu Business Line : On the way to a high-cost destination?

FOR tourists, visitors and plain old merry-makers, finding a room with a view in God's Own Country this Christmas and New Year season was a mighty difficult task - unless, of course, you were a Priyanka Gandhi or a Robert Vadhera.

All the major hotels and resorts in Kerala's popular tourist destinations such as Kovalam, Varkala, Kumarakom, Munnar, Kochi and Thekkady are all booked out until the second week of January. The State-owned Kerala Tourism Development Corporation (KTDC) reports that all its prime properties at Thekkady, Kumarakom, Munnar, Bolghatty and Kovalam are full until January 15.

Almost all domestic and international flights to the State are also chock-a-block with revellers out to welcome the New Year while savouring the delights of this green strip of paradise. According to Kerala Tourism, the international and domestic tourist arrivals to the State are expected to register an increase of 30 and six per cent respectively this year.

However, amidst all the euphoria of the marketing success of Kerala, a new trend seems to be emerging - the growth of pricey rooms. This season, according to trade sources, rooms in the major resorts were sold in the $300-700 per night range. That places Kerala right upfront in the list of expensive travel destinations.

In itself, that may not be a bad development for Kerala's economy in general and the travel and tourism trade in particular, even if profit margins get squeezed. However, managing and maintaining a high-cost destination involves a different set of skills.

In `Marketing Places: Attracting Investment, Industry and Tourism to Cities, States and Nations', Philip Kotler, marketing guru and professor of business at Northwestern University, US, says, "All places are in trouble now, or will be in the near future. The globalisation of the world's economy and the accelerating pace of technological changes are two forces that require all places to learn how to compete. Places must learn how to think more like businesses, developing products, markets and customers..."

To be sure, Kerala has been doing precisely that in the recent past, aided by some deft marketing, catchy advertising, astute entrepreneurs and a sensible government policy of minimal interference. However, as the State becomes an increasingly expensive destination, it should now think of a `strategic place marketing plan' to maintain its lead.

Kotler and his colleagues say that such a plan should consider improvements in five areas: (1) urban design; (2) infrastructure; (3) basic services such as fire, police and education; (4) attractions; and (5) people. They discuss this last category primarily in terms of the kinds of stereotypes that may apply to the inhabitants of an area - for example, residents of Sicily are criminals; those living in the deep south of the US are friendly but slow-moving; and, in Kerala's case, its inhabitants are vociferous, belligerent and prone to strikes and militant action.

Kerala's challenge now is to devise ways in which such negative stereotypes may be overcome and positive images capitalised upon. In this context, Kotler and his colleagues mention five factors that are critical to the development of an appropriate and useful image: it must be valid; it must be believable; it must be simple; it must have appeal; and it must be distinctive.

Kerala's slogan `God's Own Country' may be simple and distinctive enough, but it borders on the fanciful and stretches the imagination a bit too much. Perhaps it is time for Kerala to go beyond the merely romantic.

The writer can be contacted at kg@tug.org.in

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