‘Kerala Tourism should focus on digital campaigns’

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: When tourists search for Ayurveda or holiday packages online, they should first get the Kerala packages and related results instead of some packages elsewhere. This target could be achieved through strong digital campaigns after “a crucial analysis of the ICT projects and promotional tools carried out by other state tourism agencies”, said the official Kerala Tourism Statistics 2018, released here on Thursday.
The stress on such digital campaigns for maintaining online presence has been made after it was found that continuous updation of information to website and its enhancements to match the technological upgradation had helped Kerala Tourism to maintain its top position in online searches even during the floods.
“It’s interesting to note that the Kerala Tourism website ranks second in search results if we search for ‘Kerala’ (after Wikipedia), and it appears in the first position when keywords such as ‘Kerala Tourism’ or ‘Kerala Travel’ are searched,” the report, which provides complete statistics of tourism activities in the state during 2018, including number of foreign and domestic visitors and foreign exchange yielded by the sector.
Listing out the ICT project initiatives, including website maintenance, YouTube channel, Clint memorial painting competition and tourism microsites, the report said the post-flood campaign achieved its target to bring 6,00,000 visits to www.keralatourism.org from 20 cities within India and 4,00,000 visits from 20 cities outside India in 3-4 months.
In 2018-19, as per an analysis of traffic to website with Google Analytics tool, the website received 4.4 million visits from outside India. “However, because of the unexpected flood, the tourism sector started moving towards an alarming situation and hence, it was necessary to work out campaigns to meet the challenge,” the report pointed out.
Currently, except the promotional campaigns, all other ICT project initiatives are long-term projects and useful for future tourism ICT initiatives, the report said, adding that Kerala Tourism website so far has secured 10,2,52,887 sessions/visits. Besides, the YouTube channel has scored more than two crore viewership.
Citing the advent of digital era, the report stressed the need for round-the-clock online visibility of Kerala Tourism on top results for any search related to the state. “A crucial analysis of the ICT projects and promotional tools carried out by other state tourism agencies will greatly help Kerala Tourism in effective planning and implementation of new and creative digital platforms and campaigns to bring tourists to Kerala,” the report said. Tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran and top tourism officials, meanwhile, said that the report will “serve as a basic document to evaluate the present scenario and chalk out future activities in tourism sector” and that it will be a guide for the administrators, stakeholders and researchers.