Kerala has drawn up ambitious plans to scale up foreign tourist arrivals by 100 per cent and domestic tourist arrivals by 50 per cent in the next five years, according to K Raj Kumar, Deputy Director of the Kerala Tourism department.
He was addressing the media here on Thursday after a tourism roadshow. “At present, the State annually draws over a million foreign tourists and over a crore domestic tourists. In 2017, a total of 10,91,000 international tourists visited the State as against 10,31,000 in 2016. In 2017, 1.46 crore domestic tourists visited the State as against 1.31 crores in 2016.”
Adventure tourism
Raj Kumar said the State was focussing on adventure tourism and it had taken up a number of innovative initiatives in recent times to promote tourism.
Kerala Blog Express is one such event which brings together distinguished international bloggers from more than 30 countries and they are taken to various tourist spots in the State. The fifth edition of the annual event begins on March 12 this year.
Kerala Travel Mart
Kerala Travel Mart, a four-day event, begins on September 27 to bring together the business fraternity and entrepreneurs behind the State's tourism products and services.
The State is going all out to woo domestic tourists as well and organising partnership meets in all the important towns and cities across the nation.