Inbound

Kerala and West Bengal to work closely for tourism promotion

Joy Roy Choudhury - Kolkata

The tourism departments of Kerala and West Bengal plan to work more closely in the years to come to increase the flow of tourists between the two states. "We want to work out a bilateral arrangement between ourselves, so that we can increase the flow of tourists from Kerala to West Bengal and vice-versa", Dr Venu V, secretary, Kerala Tourism told Express TravelWorld.

As a step towards this direction, a strong 30-member delegation headed by Dr Venu and consisting of top tourism department officials, hoteliers and tour operators were in the city to showcase the 'God's own Country' in Kolkata. "We will shortly open our tourist office in Kolkata to facilitate travel to this southern state," Dr Venu continues. He said, Manabendra Mukherjee, the tourism minister of West Bengal who visited Kerala few months back had mooted such an arrangement. "We share many things in common, our love for fish and football is well known, besides, we share a strong cultural relationship," he added.

Dr Venu also emphasised on increasing the air-connectivity between the two states. Adding to that he said, to increase flow of domestic tourists into the state, Kerala Tourism has identified six focus markets. Besides, West Bengal the other five markets are Gujarat, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Meanwhile, Kerala Tourism has framed programmes like 'Synergy Quest', 'Let's Learn', 'Wake Up To Malabar', 'Pioneering Responsible Tourism' and 'Dream Season' to sustain the growth it has been registering in the past few years. "We want to promote new experiences, including monsoon tourism, plantations, soft adventure experiences, culinary tourism and village tourism by staying at the 500-odd home stays," said Dr Venu.

With a promotional budget of only Rs 14 crore to campaign worldwide, the state has been able to mop up more than Rs 9,000 crore from tourism in 2006-07 of which 30 per cent is foreign exchange earnings. K G Mohanlal, managing director, Kerala Tourism Development Corporation (KTDC), who was also a part of the delegation said, "KTDC is rebranding 11 of its hotels to suit the varied needs of the budget tourists."

"We want to dispel the notion of the budget traveller that the state is a very expensive destination," concluded Dr Venu.