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Kerala has witnessed a 5.71% spike in tourist arrivals last year with around 14.2 million visitors thereby tiding over the challenges thrown up by the demonetisation drive.
Provisional figures from Kerala Tourism show that 14, 210,954 tourists came to Kerala in 2016. Out of this, 13,172,535 were domestic arrivals while 1,038,419 were foreign visitors indicating an increase of 5.67% and 6.23% respectively when compared to 2015.
In November, which is the peak tourist season in Kerala, there was a significant half-percentage drop in domestic tourist arrivals following the Central government’s announcement of the ban on high-value currency notes.
“Had it not been for demonetisation, Kerala would have had a commendable increase in tourist arrivals,” said Mr. Kadakampally Surendran, Minister for Tourism, Kerala. “A setback to the tourism sector will have a significant impact on the economy. The continuous efforts by the government and private tourism partners helped Kerala Tourism withstand the demonetisation crisis,” said the minister.
“The unique tourism products and innovative marketing strategies helped Kerala tide over the difficult phase,” said Dr. Venu V., Principal Secretary, Kerala Tourism. He said he expected to see an increase in tourism footfalls in the coming months.
However, the note ban did not have a large-scale impact on foreign arrivals. While the months of October and December saw an increase of 8.45% and 8.01% respectively when compared to 2015, November witnessed a smaller increase of 6.98%. The overall scenario was better when compared to domestic arrivals since foreign visitors tend to book their holidays in advance.
“We were expecting an overall increase of 7% in foreign tourist arrivals and 6.5% in domestic tourist arrivals for 2016 before the demonetisation,” said Mr. U. V. Jose, Director, Kerala Tourism.
“Tourist arrivals in the second half of the year - from June to December – were higher when compared to last year; but the projections of 8.5% for foreign tourist arrivals and 7.5% for domestic tourist arrivals were impacted by the Centre’s announcement,” he added.
The Kerala Tourism intends to release the detailed report on the statistics by April.
