Tourism

Focus Areas for Sustaining Tourism as a Growth Driver

Tourism has been one of the successful pillars of economic development in the State. To sustain the growth in the sector as well as to address the challenges confronting the sector, the State needs to focus on certain thrust areas and formulate plan and policies accordingly. The strategies need to be oriented to widen the market of the State and spread the popularity to cover a wider spectrum of people and regions.

Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index

The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2015 gives a comprehensive view of the travel and tourism sector. It features the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) measures “the set of factors and policies that enable the sustainable development of the Travel and Tourism (T&T) sector, which in turn, contributes to the development and competitiveness of a country.” Published biennially, the TTCI benchmarks the T&T competitiveness of 141 economies. It comprises four sub indexes, 14 pillars, and 90 individual indicators, distributed among the different pillars.

Spain leads the 2015 TTCI ranking and Europe - with a total of six countries in the top 10 - is confirmed as the region with the most T&T- competitive economies. India rank 52nd among the 141 economies. The country’s natural resources (17th) are vast and diverse and its cultural resources (10th) include a unique intangible heritage (8th), sports events and a large entertainment offer. India’s relevance as business travel destination is increasing along with its economic growth, and it remains a price-competitive destination (8th) and recent changes in its visa regime (not yet reflected in the data rankings) have the potential to boost international arrivals. However, longstanding infrastructure gaps remain, especially in tourism-specific infrastructure (109th) and the quality of roads. Despite some uneven progress, India also lags on health and hygiene (106th) and ICT readiness (114th). The safety and security situation is unsettling, with a perceived increase in the impact of crime and violence (97th), and India ranks only 139th for environmental sustainability.

Marketing/Publicity

In order to retain the market supremacy, Kerala Tourism launched number of new and innovative marketing campaigns in both international and domestic markets. The Great Backwater of Kerala, Kerala – Home of Ayurveda, Your Moment is Waiting and Dream Season are the major multimedia campaigns carried out by Kerala Tourism in the major markets. Market-specific campaigns were also carried out to attract tourists from strategic markets including Middle East, Australia and Japan. Innovative campaigns like train branding, airport displays and social media campaigns were taken up to attract more number of tourists.

The analysis of source markets shows that there has been not much significant change in the source market over the years. It is highly concentrated in regions such as Europe and U.S. Hence, it is important to market the tourism potential of the State in newer and unexplored regions of the world so as to increase tourist inflow. Innovations in marketing techniques need to be explored and new strategies must be evolved. The brand image of Kerala tourism needs to be marketed in a more professional and organized manner. The share of marketing in government spending towards this sector needs to be enhanced.

Development of Infrastructure

A major portion of the government spending in the State is set apart for the creation and upgradation of infrastructure facilities at the destinations. However, given the constraints on budgetary resources, it is essential that private sector investment is encouraged towards the development of infrastructure with respect to accommodation and supporting facilities. Development of small and medium enterprises in tourism will enhance the situation in this regard. As per the recent statistics, there is considerable demand for heritage resorts, home stays and house boats by the foreign tourists visiting Kerala. The government can offer certain subsidies to encourage private investments in this area. Therefore, support of the Central and State government should be in the form of a facilitator by providing investor-friendly atmosphere.

Source: Department of Tourism, Government of Kerala

Niche Tourism Products

Kerala tourism sector is heavily dependent on nature-based tourism. Over the years, thrust has been given to nature-based tourism with emphasis on beaches, back waters and hill stations. However, it is felt that the State cannot survive with nature-based tourism activities alone in the long run. This is also attributed to be one of the reasons for the declining growth rate of the sector in recent years. The situation demands for identification of new and diverse tourism products. This will also help to reduce the pressure on nature especially on the most fragile eco spots.

Kerala has enough scope for the development of new products in tourism. The rich cultural and heritage potentials, medical tourism, MICE, eco-tourism, film tourism, and cruise tourism are some of the important areas that can be given greater thrust.

Identification of thrust areas and pillars of development

For the comprehensive and sustainable development of tourism sector, the State needs to identify a set of activities and prioritize them in a more efficient manner. The identified thrust areas in the sector include:

• Economic Dimension: it includes product differentiation, market diversification, innovations, extension of market and infrastructure development.
• Environment: enhance the role of District Tourism Promotion Councils and District Management Councils for the better management of destinations. These councils with statutory authority undertake and maintain tourism projects completed in the destinations and evaluate the basic infrastructure, security, protection and encroachment at the destinations concerned.
• Social Issues: intensive efforts are required from the state government to increase the participation of local communities in the tourism activities by creating environmental awareness and educational opportunities. Programs like Responsible Tourism must be encouraged. It generates greater economic benefits to local people and enhances the benefits to local communities.
• Skill Development: The hospitality sector is the most important area that requires quality manpower on a large scale. In Kerala, institutions like Kerala Institute for Travel and Tourism Studies (KITTS),State Institute of Hospitality and Management (SIHM) and Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology (IHMCT) are the important institutions functioning in this front. Improvement of skills among the service providers associated with the industry and the life guards working at the water based destinations is also important.
• Local Government Ownership: Efforts by the local self governments to preserve and manage the tourism potentials is negligible. Most of the tourist destinations are concentrated in the rural areas. But the concerned grama panchayats are not directly participating in tourism development activities. In this context, the government should elaborate the guidelines of decentralized planning including provisions for the preservation and management of destinations coming under their purview. Thus, better co-ordination between different departments and more effective management of tourism projects can be ensured.
• Regional Priorities in Tourism Planning: The northern part of Kerala is yet to be tapped in terms of tourism potential. More thrust needs to be given for the development of northern region by providing attractive tour packages, diversified products and special offers at the initial stages. Kozhikode and Kannur can be promoted as important tourism nodes to divert part of the growth away from Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. The economically disadvantaged districts like Malappuram, Palakkad, Kannur and Pathanamthitta also deserve a better share of tourism activities.

Responsible Tourism

Community Participation in Tourism development is successfully implemented in Kerala through Kerala Responsible Tourism (RT) initiative launched in 2008. The initiative, implemented on a pilot basis, has succeeded in mobilizing local community and channelizing the resources for strengthening the tourism activity in various destinations. The Tourism Policy 2012 of the State is based on the RT principles. The State now requires to mainstream the RT activities by taking the principles of RT to the whole spectrum of tourism activities and encouraging the tourism service providers to adopt the RT principles in their business. The learning from the pilot phases since 2008 has to be now applied to the whole state. RT activities in the state will now have 2 distinct streams of activities;

i) The field level activities to work with the community, LSGs, Government agencies, NGOs, tourism trade etc.

ii) The supporting academic and research activities to be taken up continuously to support the field level activities and give proper guidance based on the studies.

The field level activities will be undertaken by the proposed RT Mission with the State and field level staff. The academic and research activities related to RT will be taken up by KITTS under RT School. Both RT Mission and RT School will work together complementing each other to ultimately bring the benefits of tourism to the local community. This plan envisages to undertake RT classification of tourism units like hotels/Homestays/Houseboat/Ayurveda centres/Tour operators/Tourist Transport operators etc; encourage and facilitate community level tourism activities; facilitate establishing tourism linkages to community level activities; encourage and facilitate tourism units and tourists taking up socially relevant activities; encourage and facilitate tourism units and tourists on environmental friendly practices; documentation of the field level activities, studies, researches etc; and build capacity of community at various level to get benefited from tourism.

Kerala needs to frame the right strategies to address its challenges in tourism. To frame and formulate appropriate strategies, the State needs accurate and updated data on tourism related activities. The focus should be on addressing the infrastructure gaps; promoting new products and destinations; harnessing the potential of eco-tourism, cultural tourism, heritage tourism; and providing clear and secure environment to attract more tourists. It needs to build on its strength, identify the challenges and prepare a strategy to propel tourism as a promising sector of future.