Tourism Department Kerala

Kerala has been growing as one of the favorite destinations for the tourists. An immense contribution has been made by the Tourism Department of Kerala to make it a marvel experience amongst the tourists. Kerala located between the Western Ghats and Arabian Sea is famously known as God’s own country.

History

The importance of tourism was realized by Kerala in 1980’s. It was the first prince of Kerala Col. Goda Varma Raja who realized the potential Kerala had for tourism during his honeymoon period. But, not much importance was given to his suggestion by the Royal Family. The continuous efforts in this regard finally made Kerala Government realize the importance of the beauty withheld by Kerala. The tourism department was earlier the part of State Guest Department of Travancore and the Hospitality Organization of the Cochin State. Later, after the formation of Kerala state in 1958, these two organizations were merged into “Tourism Department”. Its prime role is to regulate and supervise all the activities concerning the state tourism.

Stem Out of Government

The head of the Department is of the IAS cadre and is supported by two Additional Directors. Out of these two Additional Directors, one is General Director who assists the Director of the Department and the other Additional Director looks only after the Hospitality wing. There are three Joint Directors, Administrative Officer, Finance Officer and Planning officer. There is a publicity wing, Accounts Department, Statistics, Research and computer Division. The Tourist Department has offices in all the districts. There are around fifteen Information Offices in the State and around four offices outside the State. All these contribute effectively in the publicity of Kerala Tourism.

The various Departments under Kerala Tourism:

• Kerala Tourism Development Corporation (KTDC)
• Bekal Resort Tourism Corporation
• The District Tourism Promotion Councils
• TRKL -Tourists Resorts Kerala Ltd
• KITTS - Kerala Institute of Travel and Tourism Studies
• KIHMS - Kerala Institute of Hospital Management Studies

Major Functions of the Department

There are three major functions of the Tourism Department of Kerala:

Hospitality Wing

This Department is majorly involved in providing accommodation and transportation facility to the State Guest including VIPs and VVIPs. They have around 24 Guest houses and have a fleet of cars of different types and models for providing transport to the guests as well as the political Influences.

Estate Office Duty

The Department is responsible for providing residential Bungalows to the guest of the State including the political leaders.

Tourism Development

The activities under this Department are classified into

• Marketing and Promotion
• Planning and development
• Support to other agencies

Promotional Activities

The promotions and effective marketing is required to promote Tourism. This will help tourists to recognize Kerala as a different and unique Destination. For this, the Kerala Tourism Department takes several initiatives like printing Ads, distributing Brochures with colorful pictures, media Advertisement, conducting events during Festival time, an edge to Travel writers, Participating in National and International fairs and Festivals.

For the Development reasons, this Department also identifies new places in order to enhance the beauty of the place and add up more places of Attraction. The Department aids in developing these areas as tourists spots thus providing assistance to District Promotion Tourism Councils (DPTC’s).

The Department requires encouragement from the Government in order to attract investments from the private sector. Converting Tourism into an Industry helped earn various incentives and concessions from the Government to the Department of Tourism in Kerala.

Road shows are conducted on periodical basis wherein the city based travel industry representatives are addressed by the Department of tourism of Government of Kerala.
They have been planning timely religious harmony tours.

Initiatives

• Online Home stay Accreditation

This has been initiated to improve the quality and competence of home stays in the State. Each and every home stay has to get the accreditation from the Department of Tourism of Government of Kerala. The online stays make the process faster and are an easy way to keep the records.

• E-submission of Tourist arrivals

This has been initiated by the efforts to streamline the collection of tourist arrival data. Every accommodation provider has been given a unique username and id to upload the details of the domestic and international travelers. This helps them to have the real time data in order to plan the promotional activities.

• Online tour operator Accreditation

An online domain was created in order to make tour operators register and submit online application form online.