Kerala tourism has unlimited potential to help the development of the State, said Tourism Minister P.A. Mohamed Riyas. He was speaking after inaugurating a seminar on ‘Kerala Development and Tourism Possibilities’ organised as part of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists’ (KUWJ) State conference here on Thursday.
Stating that the notion that ‘big buildings are tourism’ is not true, the Minister said: “we should be able to make people believe that if there is a tourist destination, it will certainly bring a change in their lives. There has been no significant increase in the number of foreign tourists visiting the State after the pandemic. However, various schemes implemented by the Tourism department have brought the domestic tourists back in large numbers.”
The Minister rued that when Time magazine has chosen Kerala among 50 ‘extraordinary destinations’ across the globe to explore in 2022, it was not given adequate publicity by the media. “It would have been different had the destination been another State. The media should be careful that negative news does not affect the potential of the tourism sector,” he said.
There are several unexplored tourist destinations in the State. The media should be ready to publish features about such destinations and come up with specific suggestions to nurture them, he said.
The Minister also said the government had been trying to solve the travel issues by ensuring the development of national highways, hill and coastal highways.
