After long five months, the flood-striken devastated Kerala, is all set to welcome tourists to its famed backwaters in Kumarakom, Alappuzha and the picturesque hill stations like Munnar. Although the peak winter season is not so very lively like the previous one, most hoteliers and resort owners say that business is reviving.
Being “God’s Own Country”, the tourism sector of the state contributes 10 per cent to its GDP. So the restoration activities are at full speed to get back its glory as a tourist destination and all the reviving efforts have got its recognitions when the most affected areas of the state have registered themselves as top tourist destinations for the year 2019.
During the natural disaster, over 10,000 km of the state and national highways were either broken or blocked with debris due to landslides in some of the well known hill destinations like Thekkady and Munnar. Roads in Idukki district were worst affected by the monsoon fury and are under quick renovations. Additionally works on a four-lane expressway to Munnar is going on with a full speed. There is still work to be done.
Abraham George, Member, National Tourism Advisory Board, says “The state is slowly picking up. Some tourists still feel that Kerala isn’t fully ready and which enable them to cancel trips, but this is not the case. So we try to spread the message digitally and through road shows.”
K. Vijayan, the secretary of the All Kerala Houseboat Owners Association, comments that many foreign tourists anticipating transmitted diseases as the after-flood effects, opt for some other destinations like Thailand and Sri Lanka. He said, ‘Though our houseboats did not suffer any physical damage because of the floods, still they have broken our business.’
The Keralites believe that the inclusion of many ravaged places of Kerala in the top tourist destinations for this year, will regain foreign foot-falls with a decent number. The bulk of visitors to Kerala for now are domestic. As per the statistics, fifteen million local tourists and 1 million foreign tourists visited the state in 2017.
