With the advent of digital era, promotional activities of Kerala Tourism have given way to digital campaigns. The website is now in the top position, surpassing the websites of India Tourism and other State tourism boards.

‘Kerala’ and ‘Kerala Tourism’ are the key searches on the Internet for tourists seeking information about destinations in the State. Most of such online searches happen through Google.

Kerala Tourism’s official websitekeralatourism.orgranks second in search results if one searches for Kerala. Wikipedia comes first. Kerala Tourism website comes first when the keywords are ‘Kerala Tourism’ or ‘Kerala Travel’.

The Kerala Tourism website, launched in 1998, has played a key role in promoting the destination and tourism products such as Ayurveda, backwaters, responsible tourism, increasing footfall.

The website got more hits than the India Tourism website and a few tourism websites of States such as Gujarat, Rajasthan, Goa, and Delhi and even some global tourism websites (see table).

With the advent of digital era , the promotional activities of Kerala Tourism, which were confined to newspapers and magazines, have given way to digital campaigns maintaining 24-hour online presence .

The website received 41 lakh sessions/visits in the financial year 2017-18, which went up to 1,02,52,887 in 2018-19 as per Google Analytics. Kerala Tourism YouTube Channel, another ICT initiative, has more than 38,869,088 viewership and over one lakh subscriptions.

Of the 10,96,407 foreign tourists who visited the State in January-December in 2018, 20.9% used the website as a source of information for preparing their itinerary. The recently released Kerala Tourism Statistics 2018 also reveals that 19.6% of the tourists depended on the tourist information office and centres and own experience (14.2%) came third.

As much as 12.4% of the 1,56,04,661 domestic tourists who came to the State in 2018 depended on the website for working out their itinerary. Friends and relatives came first with 26.2% and 21.2% used own experience.

Over the past 22 years, information and enhancements on the website were updated continuously to match technological changes. This has helped Kerala Tourism maintain its prime slot in online searches.

Even in the hardest times, which included two floods, outbreak of avian flu, swine flu, and H1N1, and sudden hartals, the website had come in handy to reach out to the world and convey the message that ‘Kerala is safe’ .

In 2018, an increase of 0.42% in foreign tourist arrivals and 6.35% in domestic tourist arrivals were registered despite the flood that ravaged the State. “We could overcome the negative trend of tourist arrivals in four months with sustained innovative tourism promotion activities, including digital campaigns,” says Director of Tourism P. Bala Kiran.

The digital era and arrival of smartphones have also altered the marketing strategy and allocation of funds for tourism promotion by Kerala Tourism. From a mere 2% allocation for the digital campaign till two years ago, Mr. Kiran says the department is now expending 10% of the marketing funds to ensure 24-hour online presence and promotion of the destination as the emphasis is to “talk directly to the people”.

“Kerala Tourism has channelised IT for tourism promotion and to increase footfall. The thrust is on digital marketing and to concentrate on new markets such as China, Japan, and Eastern Europe. In China, we will have to adopt a new strategy to reach tourists as they do not use Google,” he says.

Website in 21 languages

As part of the new measures, the official website, available in 21 languages, has been enriched to give a contemporary feel with rich images. The full website is available in six Indian and foreign languages. All services provided on the official website are also now available in the Kerala Tourism app.

Theme-based Kerala Tourism microsites on Neelakurinji, Padayani, Christianity, Responsible Tourism have also been a hit. Last year, there were 6,68,752 visits to the website launched for Neelakurinji promotion in Munnar.

The microsite on Christianity received 4,46,136 visits. Video sequencing contest, geotagged mobile camera photographs, e-catalogue for Kerala Tourism videos were the other major ICT projects.

The stakeholders of the tourism industry that fetched foreign exchange of Rs. 8,764.46 crore in 2018 have also geared up to embrace digital marketing and exploit social media.

“Kerala has played host to three international conferences on tourism technology in which experts in digital marketing, social media, and artificial intelligence shared their experiences. This has helped 1,000 stakeholders for capacity building and Kerala to be on the forefront in digital marketing,” says P.K. Anish Kumar, a leading tour operator and managing director of Travel Planners.

30-member team

The official website follows a responsive design for better user experience. “We have a 30-member dedicated team to take care of the Kerala Tourism website, Kerala Tourism app, and Kerala Tourism Youtube Channel,” says M.R. Hari, managing director, Invis Multimedia, the capital-based IT Solution Provider for Kerala Tourism.

Kerala Tourism’s Instagram has 2,36,000 followers, Twitter 1.86 million followers, and Youtube 1,21,000 subscribers. Kerala Tourism Facebook page with 3.55 million followers is now second in Asia and fourth globally after the United States (6.7 million), Australia (8.3 million), and Dubai (6.7 million). “We have overtaken Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Going by the current trend, we are hopeful of overtaking Dubai in 2021,” adds Mr. Kiran.

Kerala Tourism has channelised IT for tourism promotion and to increase footfall. The thrust is on digital marketing and to concentrate on new markets such as China, Japan, and Eastern Europe.

P. Bala Kiran

Director of Tourism