Kerala Tourism is to start an aggressive campaign to promote short-haul tours among domestic tourists of tier-II cities in the south as part of reviving the virus-hit tourism sector.
The campaign to reboot the tourism economy will be through websites of leading media houses, social media platforms, over-the-top media, FM radio, music streaming channels, and bloggers. The campaign, to be launched soon, will be to sustain the interest of travelling. It will project domestic travel as the best bet to break the lockdown fatigue among citizens.
With restrictions on travelling in the domestic and international sector continuing in view of the pandemic, Kerala Tourism has come to the conclusion that revival of the tourism sector is possible only through affordable short-haul tours.
“The target is to rope in those from tier-II cities in the south. Those from Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Mysuru, Coimbatore and Madurai, and natives are the focus. They will be lured to tourist places for two to three days,” official sources told The Hindu .
Another campaign is being planned for the Kerala audience on local tourist destinations and on the Responsible Tourism products.
The working group on tourism chaired by Secretary, Tourism, Rani George on Tuesday cleared the campaign and decided to launch it at the earliest. The campaign is in tune with India Tourism’s directive to promote short-haul tours to revive the travel trade and hospitality sectors that are badly hit by the pandemic.
Officials of Kerala Tourism and the stakeholders of the industry are of the view that the situation is ‘pathetic’ and that the claims of tourist inflow are not correct. Some hotels that remained closed down due to the lockdown have opened and are being used for quarantining those coming from outside the State.
“It is an appropriate decision from the decision makers, as it will take three to four months for the tourists to slowly start coming to the State. It is a pro-active step from Kerala Tourism after assessing the situation. If the situation improves, we can see domestic tourist arrivals picking up in the State after Deepavali, says E.M. Najeeb, president, Confederation Kerala Tourism Industry.
