KERALA TOURISM NEWSLETTER
Kerala, a model in tourism marketing
Kerala Tourism is a model for other states and nations in marketing and introducing new tourism products like houseboats and Ayurveda, says Mr. Pradip Madhavji, Chairman of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Chamber Tourism Council.
The country can do much more to promote tourism. For tapping tourism for foreign exchange, the government and the tourism industry should pay more attention to coax foreign visitors to stay just a day longer during their visit. Over five million foreigners visit the country for business or leisure every year. The foreign exchange earnings are in excess of $12 billion. The average money spent by a foreigner during his visit is $ 2,400 and the average stay of a foreign visitor here is 23 days.
"The average money spent by a foreign visitor here is $104 a day. If we can persuade half of the foreign visitors to stay one additional night, the country will get hundreds of crores more as foreign exchange," said Mr. Madhavji.
Mr. Pradip Madhavji, a former Honorary Consul of New Zealand, also said that the tourism industry should encourage foreigners to come to India for meetings, conventions, medical needs and higher studies. The Tourism Promotion Boards should take the initiative for this, he added.
The stakeholders in tourism industry should make use of the WTM London, ITB Berlin and  other buyer-seller meets being organised across the world. Instead of marketing just a destination, the Indian states should jointly market the destinations and tourism products.
Air connectivity to two-tier cities is added benefit for both the aviation sector and tourism, he said.
