KOCHI: The tourism sector in the state is yet to pick up after two months of the beginning of the season this year due to high hotel tariffs over confusion in GST and attractive offers to tourists from Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia. As a result, hotels in the state are in firefighting mode and are now slashing room tariffs now that slashed GST rates are in force from November 15. “We are pinning our hopes on the next two weeks for more tourist arrivals which is crucial in this year’s season,” said Rajesh P R, a tourism stakeholder.
He said that so far there was a drop of 20 percent in foreign tourist arrivals to the state compared to last year while in the case of domestic tourists, it had gone down by 30 percent. “For domestic tourists, news spreading about the political violence is a deterrent factor while in the case of foreign tourists, high room tariffs initially due to 28 percent GST on rooms having a tariff of above Rs 7500 per day came as dampener. The attack on the Swiss tourist in Agra also came as another negative factor,” he said. “There is also feedback that Kerala Tourism’s reaction on the Taj Mahal controversy on Twitter had a negative impact on domestic arrivals from North India. It is better to steer clear of such things,” a tour operator said.
According to Sajeev CT, another tourism stakeholder, Sri Lanka and Maldives are giving close competition to Kerala tourism with cheaper and cleaner tourism. “Thailand and Malaysia too have become preferred destinations of foreign and north Indian tourists which is a setback to Kerala,” he said adding that Neelakurinji season in Munnar holds much hope this season. “We have a Central tourism minister and two top tourism officials at the Centre are from the Kerala IAS cadre. We should be able to turn the tables in our favour,” said Mr Rajesh.
