Tourism

Bio-bubble system helped in improving the tourist flow to Kerala

The bio-bubble system and complete-vaccination destination project have helped the State tourism sector, which had been crippled due to the pandemic outbreak, reclaim its tourist inflow.

Bio-bubbles are sanitised, safe and secure environments where those who receive and serve tourists as well as others likely to come into contact with them are vaccinated. The protective ring of the bio-bubble ensures that even the ground staff at the airports are vaccinated.

From the airport, visitors can drive to their chosen destinations in cabs provided by accredited tour operators whose drivers would also be vaccinated. The same protocol applies to the staff at hotels, resorts or home stays where visitors stay during their holiday.

Tourism Minister P A Mohamed Riyas said that during the time of crisis the entire focus of the state government was to instill confidence in the sector so that it would be able to overcome the challenges. The minister said several programmes were implemented with the objective of ””safe Kerala and safe tourism” and to bring back holidayers.

“As part of this, the complete-vaccinated-destination project was launched in Vythiri in Wayanad district. It has been expanded to other places and the majority of tourism destinations have achieved the target now,” Riyas said. “The bio-bubble system has been implemented to make the tourism sector safe and secure. The latest figures indicate an increase in the domestic tourist arrival in the state and these all factors seemed to have helped for the same,” the minister added.

The implementation of innovative projects like ”caravan tourism”, recently launched by the department, and the farm tourism network, a proposed programme to tap the potential of agriculture tourism, are expected to revive the sector and facilitate its strong come back, he added.

As part of promoting Caravan Tourism, Transport Minister Antony Raju today agreed in-principle to a proposal from Tourism Minister P A Mohamed Riyas to slash the motor-vehicle tax on tourist caravans by one-fourth, considering the immense scope of Caravan Tourism in the state.

The Government’s policy is that every panchayat and municipality must have at least one tourist destination. It has also been decided to give registration for Caravans within 24 hours of application.

Signalling the full-swing revival of tourism in the state, the Lakshadweep-bound luxury liner M V Empress with 1200 cruisers on board called at Kochi on September 22, and 300 of the passengers disembarked at the port city for day-long sight-seeing.

Kerala Tourism has also launched a tourism mobile app that provides detailed information about all the destinations, hotels and other amenities to tourists while travelling within the state.