The average stay of an international tourist in God’s own country has moved up to 18.6 nights from 17.1 nights per visitor a few years ago, industry sources said. While efforts are on to promote Kerala tourism during off-season period (April-September), the sector in the state is targeting a revenue of Rs 25,000 crore in the current year.
The number of tourist footfalls in the state has touched an all time high of 1.17crore in 2013. The revenue from the sector is around Rs 23,000cr now and the foreign exchange content in this is Rs 5,000 crore.
The number of hotels in the state has doubled in the last three years to 6,000.
“The tourism sector registers a growth rate of 8 per cent in the past couple of years. This year we expect a growth rate of 10 per cent. Hence the industry will touch the Rs 25,000 crore revenue in this year,” said Kerala Tourism Secretary Suman Billa.
The tourism department has recently started a campaign through social media to attract new visitors to the state. New activities such as adventure, festivals, backwater journeys and village life experience through responsible tourism are the major initiatives of the department to increase revenue. The UK, the US and European countries remain the major market for the sector.
Suman Billa pointed out that the recent off-season promotion campaign aimed at wooing the domestic travellers to the state.