Kerala tourism seeks tax holiday in deficit' areas

KOCHI: The new tourism policy of Kerala, currently under the consideration of the Cabinet, has called for providing investment subsidy, including tax holidays, in tourism deficient districts of Malabar region. It has also called for ending the practice of charging commercial rates for utilities such as electricity, water and property taxes for home- stays. Tourism director P. Bala Kiran told this newspaper on Friday that the department had made several suggestions in the policy and it was for the Cabinet to take a decision.

Declining to make any comments on specific recommendations, he said the thrust of the policy would be to consolidate the gains made by the tourism sector in the state and to focus on Malabar as the next major tourism circuit in the state.
“At present, more than 80 per cent of the tourism traffic in the state is happening in the south, mainly centred around Kochi with very few visitors venturing to the north. So we are making north Kerala as a major focus area,” he said. The districts in Malabar have been identified as tourism deficit areas needing incentives for investments.

“There is no point in  providing an investment subsidy for setting up a hotel in Munnar or Kumarakom. But the same cannot be said about Malappuram or Kannur,”  he said.     According to Mr Kiran,  the focus will be on developing a Kozhikode-Wayanad-Kannur-Bakal circuit by developing the infrastructure facilities. “The commissioning of the Kannur International Airport is expected to provide a major fillip to the development of the circuit,”  he added. The river waterfront in the region will be a major focus in terms of infrastructure development.

“We have already identified Mahe River, Ancharakandy, Valapattanam, Perambara, Sultan Canal, Tejaswini and Chandragiri as the focus areas for water front development,”  he  said. The state is also planning to transform the destination into an activity-based tourism destination as part of consolidating the gains made in the sector. A national conference on adventure tourism will be held at Kumarakom in September as part of the process, he  said. The tourism department has planned an investment of over Rs 1,000 crore  in the current financial year for various projects which included Rs 350 crore assistance from central government for various projects, he said.