Is it time for Kerala?

There is a harassed housewife-mother on our television screens nowadays. There have always been tired mothers on televisions screens, but this one is different. By the looks of it she is a career woman trying hard to balance her work and life. She is always on her mobile phone – talking, giving instructions. In fact she does all her housework while talking on the mobile, resting between her left shoulder and cheek. She has a moment of epiphany though, when she almost deposits her family’s clothes into the fridge. Eureka, she needs a break!

Then there is this young boy, not yet into his teens, who is always on a smart-phone, tablet or computer. His parents worry about his behaviour. They try to wean him off his devices, but cannot. 
Then one day it happens – he looks at a wildlife picture in a wildlife magazine (glossy print) and tries to enlarge the picture with his fingers. Eureka again, he too needs a break!

Needless to say, both the woman and the boy know where exactly to go for the break. Kerala it is, ‘God’s own country’. 

It has been two decades since Kerala has been making systematic efforts to attract tourists. It started as a well thought out, concerted campaign in the mid-1990s. The effort then was to attract the high- and middle-end international tourists. It wanted to shake off the image of being the backpacker destination, along with Goa, in the 1970s and 1980s.

“I don’t want the tourists to come and eat my ration rice and drink my tap water,” the tourism minister had confided to journalists informally then. “We want the tourists to bring in money for the State.”

In the mid-1990s the Kerala economy was slackening and the choice was between promoting tourism or industrialisation in the State. Even the critics of tourism who talked about cultural pollution admitted that it was better to opt for tourism rather than heavy industrialisation in the State.

The tourism machinery got its act together quickly. It fired on all cylinders, and Kerala was promoted slickly at international tourism fairs and exhibitions. The State was called God’s own country, when ironically it prided itself in the reign of the Asura king Mahabali. 

Though the thrust of the God’s own country campaign started with foreign tourists, over the years it was realised that it was the domestic tourists that were bringing in more numbers and earnings. Even Keralites travelling within their State to tourist destinations generated revenue for hoteliers, restaurant owners, vehicle operators, etc. 

In 2014, Kerala Tourism published the compiled tourist numbers from 2003. The numbers tell a story. While in 2003 one in three tourists was from outside the country, in 2014 it was one in 12. 

Year	Foreign tourists	Domestic tourists
2003	294,621	5,871,228
2004	345,546	5,972,128
2005	346,499	5,946,423
2006	428,534	6,271,724
2007	515,808	6,642,941
2008	598,929	7,591,250
2009	557,258	7,913,537
2010	659,265	8,595,075
2011	732,985	9,381,455
2012	793,696	10,076,854
2013	858,143	10,857,811
2014	923,366	11,695,411

The number of foreign versus domestic tourists in Kerala

Even in terms of earnings, the money that the domestic tourists spent was much higher than that by foreigners.

Year	Total revenue generated from tourism in Rs crores	Revenue from foreign tourists in Rs crores	Revenue from domestic tourists in Rs crores
2003	5,938.00	983.37	4,954.63
2004	6,829.00	1,266.77	5,562.23
2005	7,738.00	1,552.31	6,185.69
2006	9,126.00	1,988.40	7,137.60
2007	11,433.00	2,640.94	8,792.06
2008	13,130.00	3,066.52	10,063.48
2009	13,231.00	2,853.16	10,377.84
2010	17,348.00	3,797.37	13,550.63
2011	19,037.00	4,221.99	14,815.01
2012	20,430.00	4,571.69	15,858.31
2013	22,926.55	5,560.77	17,365.78
2014	24,885.44	6,398.93	18,486.51

Earnings from foreign versus domestic tourists in Kerala

Earlier, in 2013, Kerala Tourism published detailed disaggregated information on earnings from tourism for the years 2013 and 2012. 

	2013	2012
Foreign tourists
Number of foreign tourists	858,143	793,696
Per day per person expenditure in Rs	4,496	3,600
Average duration of stay in days	18	16
Foreign exchange earnings in Rs crores	5560.77	4571.69
Domestic tourists
Number of domestic tourists	10,857,811	10,076,854
Per day per person expenditure in Rs	2,015	1,800
Average duration of stay in days	8	6
Earnings in Rs crores	17,287.21	15,404.69

The comparative figures speak an interesting story. The domestic tourists not only bring more than three times earnings to the State, but also spend close to half of what a foreign tourist spends in a day. 

Most of the domestic tourists travelled during their children’s summer holidays from April to June, and some in August-September. The foreign tourists, on the other hand, come to India between November and February. Thus, the domestic tourists also help in increasing the occupancy rate for the hotels and home-stays. 

Considering these hard facts, it is natural for Kerala Tourism to invite the harassed housewife or the distracted child to take a break and come to Kerala. After all there are houseboats to be occupied and tuskers to be bathed. 

However, where the TV commercial errs is in projecting Kerala as a kind of paradise different from the hustle and bustle of other parts of the country. On the contrary, Kerala is a highly consumerist state. According to a recent study by the School of Management Studies of Science and Technology, Cochin University, the State consumes more than 28% of the nation’s basket of high value speciality goods. This is despite the State’s contribution to the national GDP being only slightly more than 1%. The study defines these high end goods as high-value cars, fridges, television sets and mobile phones. 

The life of the people in Kerala is no different from the life that is being portrayed in the TV commercial. So where is the question of a break?

Interestingly, when Mikku the young boy tries to expand the picture of an elephant in a glossy magazine, his father sitting next to him is busy texting on his mobile phone. It is not difficult to guess where Mikku got his obsession for gadgets. Obviously, what should be the break has to have an entirely different explanation.

Till then, welcome to Kerala, God’s own country.