Overcoming a host of factors like enhanced Goods and Service Tax (GST) for tourism products and Ockhi cyclone that lashed the State, Kerala Tourism has been able to register an increase of 11.39% in domestic tourist arrivals and 5.15% increase in foreign tourist arrivals in 2017.
The statistics has cheered the tourism authorities as the new Tourism policy unveiled recently set an ambitious target of increasing domestic tourist arrivals by 50% and doubling the foreign tourists by 2021. For this, a growth of around 9% every year for domestic tourists and around 15% for international tourists is needed.
Foreign exchange from the tourism sector of the State went up by 8.29% to ₹8,392.11 crore in 2017 compared to the figures of 2016. Total direct earnings from the sector rose to ₹26,000.33 crore from ₹23,098.15 crore, a growth of 12.56%, as per the tourism statistics released by Kerala Toursm for the January-December period of 2017 here on Tuesday.
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Kerala Tourism recorded an increase of ₹3,725.12 crore in total revenue generated from the sector with the revenue touching ₹33,383.68 crore compared with ₹29,658.56 crore last year. The total growth rate in terms of tourist arrivals in 2017 is the highest registered in the last nine years.
In the domestic tourist arrivals, footfalls have gone up from 1,31,72,535 in 2016 to 1,46,73,520 in 2017. There has also been a specific rise in footfalls of 15,00,985 persons in 2017, as against the numbers recorded during the end of 2016.
The rate of growth recorded was very high at around 12.22% till July 2017. However, the rate fell 9.12%, 5.29% and 3.14% in August, September and October 2017, respectively. By the end of the year, it again picked up with growth rate rising to 18.02% and 16.07% respectively.
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On the foreign tourist arrivals front, footfalls have increased from 10,38,419 to 10,91,870, an increase of 53,451 more foreign tourists. Till July 2017, the growth rate has been 7.8%. Negative growth of 9.05%, 12.62% and 3.14% were registered during August, September and October.
Foreign tourists mainly focused on Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Wayanad districts, and helped register a positive flow. Domestic tourists inflow was on Alappuzha, Idukki, Wayanad, Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam districts.
Domestic travellers to Kerala mainly arrived from southern States of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka , Andhra and Telangana. Tamil Nadu accounted for maximum footfall with 12.72 lakh visitors, Karnataka (9.33 lakh) and Maharashtra 5.47 lakh.
There has also been a significant increase in tourist arrivals from Delhi with 2,40,672 visitors (18.67% increase) and Gujarat 2,39,228 (24.48% increase). Ernakulam welcomed the maximum number of domestic tourists followed by Thrissur and Thiruvananthapuram respectively.
Holidayers from he UK were first in number with footfalls registering an increase of 16.35% at 1,80,975 visitors. The State also witnessed increase in travellers from US 92,051; (5.83%) and Canada (28,676; 17.77%). The number of travellers from China, Japan, Maldives and Indonesia also registered positive growth, as per the statistics.