TOURISM IN KERALA

The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) has released the list of 12 tourist destinations in the world some time back and Kerala has bagged the 8th position leaving behind destinations in South Africa, Vietnam and the US. Kerala is the only Indian destination that features in the list. Despite the pandemic spread all over the world Kerala had record tourist arrivals and made an earing of over 45,000 cores in 2019.  Among the top ten countries that make most from tourism, USA is the 1st with $299 billion and Japan is the 10th with $48 billion. While the name of India cannot be found in the list, leave alone Kerala. When nature has bestowed so much of beauty over our tiny state, we people are unable to generate a reasonable income from it. We are proudly depending upon alcohol and lottery for our revenue. While USA can make over 22 lakhs crores (in Indian rupees)from tourism can we not set a target of 10% of it and work to achieve the same.

The most pathetic aspect of our tourism is, when tourists from different countries are coming to see the 'God's own country' a good number of hooligans are waiting here to harass them sexually, taking photos when they take bath in the beaches and misbehaving with them in the maximum possible ways. Another set of people with no forbearance are trying to squeeze the maximum from them against different services offered. (Of course, there are considerable improvements in these things for quite sometime.) Unless we behave with them properly they will be reluctant to visit us and fast spread the news among the tourist community all over the world and it will make a severe impact on our economy. It is the responsibility of the government to provide safety and security and ensure descent behaviour with our honorable guests. Any antisocial elements misbehaving with the tourists should be secluded from the society for a long period as a punishment. A congenial atmosphere should be created for every tourist visiting us. The children of today should be taght in schools to behave with our guests properly and serve them better. The offenders should be strictly punished. The minister of tourism and all his subordinate staff, the police and all public officials may ensure excellent service to the tourists. Our state has to depend more on tourism in the coming days to hold our economy in shape. A massive demonstration should be conducted all over the state to attract large public participation in tourism industry.

K V George