The tourists in Kerala from the country and abroad, now will be able to see the beauty and bounty of rural life. The State Government wants to focus the village life to attract more tourists, mostly of whom, so far, have been confined to the beaches, backwaters and hill stations in the southern State.

Kerala Tourism Minister Mohamed Riyas said, “the focus will no longer be confined to beaches, backwaters and hill stations. We now want to transform the whole of Kerala into an interconnected tourist heaven, where visitors get plenty of choices and diverse experiences.”

Introducing new destinations, conceptualizing innovative tourism circuits, investing in infrastructure development, broadening the award-winning Responsible Tourism initiative, which allow tourists to experience the village life and local communities to benefit, and ensuring better connectivity are the new focus areas of the state’s rejigged tourism initiatives. This was what Sreekumar S, Deputy Director(in-charge) of the Kerala Tourism Department said, when he addressed a media conference.

He said that Kerala will also leverage its globally acclaimed Responsible Tourism (RT) Mission, which allows visitors to experience village life while supporting the communities that host them.

The Mission has now become the first government-owned society in the state to provide training, marketing, and other support systems to local communities to start various initiatives in the tourism sector, said the Deputy Director of the Tourism Department.

Registering the RT Mission as a society will help it from getting funds from local governments and other agencies, said adding that the RT initiative bagged the global award at World Travel Market (WTM) in London last year.

According to the presentation, Kerala Tourism will also display the trendsetting caravan tourism (Keravan Kerala) and the award-winning STREET, which is an acronym for Sustainable, Tangible, Responsible, Experiential, Ethnic Tourism hubs that take tourism deep into the State’s interiors and rural hinterlands.

Notably, Kerala set an all-time record in domestic tourist footfalls last year hosting 1.33 crore tourists in the first 3 quarters of the year. Significantly, this marked an increase of 1.94 per cent from the pre-pandemic year.