The reporting of three novel coronavirus (nCoV) cases in Kerala in students who have returned from China has resulted in a large number of cancellations of hotel bookings in the State, Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran told the Assembly on Tuesday.
“Several bookings in hotels for the months of February and March have been cancelled. The bookings were almost full for these months earlier. The cancellations now are much more, compared to that after Nipah virus was reported. A lot of misinformation on the virus is being spread too,” said the Minister.
He said that despite the flood of 2018 and 2019, the number of foreign and domestic tourists visiting the State had increased. In 2019, there was as much as 4.84% increase in the number of foreign tourists.
He pointed out that a section of the national media had continued to carry visuals of the 2018 floods even weeks after the disaster, misleading viewers into thinking that the State was still unsafe to visit.
