Kerala has witnessed 5.15 per cent growth in foreign tourist arrivals in 2017. Meanwhile, the domestic tourist arrivals grew by 11.39 percent in 2017 over 2016.
Figures compiled by Kerala Tourism have revealed positive signs of attaining the set goal in the domestic tourism circuit with an increase of 15 lakh new tourists. With growth almost doubling than that of last year, domestic tourist arrivals have, in fact, achieved more than what has been targeted in the Kerala Tourism Policy.
In terms of tourism revenue, total foreign exchange from the tourism sector increased 8.29 percent to Rs 8392.11 crore compared to the figures of last year. Total direct earnings from the sector grew to Rs 26000.33 crore from Rs 23098.15 crore, a growth of 12.56 percent. The Tourism Department has recorded an increase of Rs 3725.12 crore in total revenue generated from the sector, at Rs 33383.68 crore compared with Rs 29658.56 crore last year.
“Travellers from across the globe arrived in Kerala in large numbers during 2017, and the growth has been recorded at 5.15 percent compared with the figures of last year. This comes at a time when the tourism industry is suffering from adverse factors like enhanced GST rates and allied hurdles. The growth figures point to the immense popularity Kerala Tourism enjoys beyond the borders, said Kadakampally Surendran, Minister for Tourism, Cooperation and Devaswoms. The total growth rate in terms of tourist arrivals in 2017 is the highest registered in the last 9 years, he added.
According to Rani George, Secretary, Department of Tourism, “The new Tourism policy 2017 has set an ambitious target of increasing domestic tourist’s arrivals by 50% by year 2021 and also in doubling the foreign tourists by this period. This would require a growth of around 9% every year for domestic tourists and around 15% for international tourists”.
Looking deeper into the figures, in the domestic tourist arrivals scenario, footfalls have gone up from 1,31,72,535 in 2016, to 1,46,73,520 in 2017. There has also been a specific rise in footfalls of 15,00,985 persons in 2017, as against the numbers recorded during the end of 2016.
On the foreign tourist arrivals front, footfalls have increased from 10,38,419 to 10,91,870 . The figures point to the fact that there has been an increase of 53,451 more foreign tourists this year, with figures nearing 11 lakh. As per numbers till July 2017, the growth rate has been high during the period, at almost 7.8%. Meanwhile, the lowest growth rates were registered during August, September and October 2017, with negative growth of -9.05%, -12.62% and -3.14% respectively.
Foreign tourists mainly focused and registered positive growth in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Wayanad districts, while districts like Kasaragod, Kannur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kottayam, Kollam, Alapuzha registered negative growth in foreign tourist arrivals.
On the domestic front, tourists mainly focused on districts like Alappuzha, Idukki, Wayanad, Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam districts. Guruvayur in Thrissur district witnessed a slight decrease in the number of tourists when compared with the previous year.
