Kerala Tourism launches pathbreaking online initiative
Tourism
The newly introduced initiatives including easy-to-use user interfaces, databases and payment gateways, will mark the transformation of the Kerala Tourism website, www.keralatourism.org, from an information-led to a transaction-based one.
Kerala is one of the first State Tourism Departments to embark on this digital initiative and make this new technology live for its tourism industry. Kerala Tourism has always been quick to respond to market requirements and the latest initiative caters to the new tech-savvy traveler, who uses the Internet to plan and book his travel arrangements.
These initiatives will make Kerala more accessible to travelers and enhance the resourcefulness of www.keralatourism.org. What is more important are the opportunities it will create for small-time entrepreneurs in the State to reach out and access new markets.
The ten initiatives that are being launched under login.kerala are:
For the traveller:
Kerala Tourism has developed a blog aggregator, which is essentially a collection of blog posts from travellers around the world who have visited Kerala. These posts contain an authentic version of their experience in Kerala and are categorized based on tags. Visitors can browse these tags and read posts about various destinations, activities and experiences.
m.keralatourism.org, mobile WAP site
As more and more users are accessing the internet on their mobile handsets, Kerala Tourism has launched www.m.keralatourism.org , a mobile WAP site targeting these techno-savvy users. The WAP site is also intended at creating a community of mobile users interested in joining the campaigns and promotions of Kerala Tourism. As a first step in building a traveller base on the WAP site, tourism is running a contest where users have to identify locations in Kerala and answer questions.
Online Hotel Finder
A comprehensive database of nearly 4000 accommodation service providers in the travel and tourism sector (hotels, home stays, House Boats and Ayurvedic Centres) in Kerala has been collected and uploaded in Kerala Tourism’s website, It will give travelers and others visiting the site an idea about the accommodation option in any particular destination and other tourism services available. The project will help in bringing the small properties and homestays also into the general accommodation bank within the state and make them more proactive.
The immense potential of Information Technology has drastically changed the travel and holiday sectors across the world. It is estimated that a major share of business in this field will happen online - spurring major hotel chains across the world to give utmost priority to online marketing and booking initiatives. The online room reservation system aims at creating more opportunities for small and medium entrepreneurs in the State to reach out and access new markets. This online reservation mechanism will enable travellers to book rooms in these properties that include hotels, resorts, ayurvedic centres, homestays and houseboats.
Around 1000 properties in Kerala have already enrolled to avail the online facility, out of which around 100 of them have already started offering reservations through this platform. Rooms can be booked online by using major credit cards, debit cards, net banking and other facilities like Pay Pal. Only a nominal charge will be levied on property owners for availing this system.
Around 1000 properties in Kerala have already enrolled to avail the online facility, out of which around 100 of them have already started offering reservations through this platform. Rooms can be booked online by using major credit cards, debit cards, net banking and other facilities like Pay Pal. Only a nominal charge will be levied on property owners for availing this system.
For the trade
The properties have to submit a c-form duly filled to the nearest police station for each foreign national staying with them. The C-forms can now be submitted online through the portal www.keralatourism.org. With a large number of foreign travellers into the state, a state-of-the-art online system to register their details is increasingly important both in the context of tourism development and for the police department.
For property owners, this saves them from filling up the paper forms and submitting the hardcopies at nearest police station. It also helps in creating a central database of visiting foreigners and will make their transactions with law enforcing authorities hassle free.
A completely online system has been instituted for accrediting Travel/Tour Operators on a pilot basis. The system will include facility for accreditation applications and verifications of applications. The accreditation will be issued online itself after verification. It will help in simplifying the accreditation process and also to avoid delays in processing and distribution. The accreditation system will be extended to other tourism service providers also after the pilot implementation.
As a part of its effort to streamline and expedite collection of tourist arrival data, Kerala Tourism has introduced a facility for e-submission of tourist arrival data. The accommodation providers in the state have been provided with a unique user id and password, with which they can upload details of tourist arrivals in their properties on a daily basis. The details can be submitted nationality-wise in terms of foreign tourist arrivals and state-wise in terms of domestic tourist arrivals. It will help Kerala Tourism to have real time data on tourist arrivals and plan the promotional strategies accordingly.
In order to make brochures on Kerala easily available to travelers and Tour Operators, Kerala Tourism has developed digital brochures and has uploaded them on www.keralatourism.org. Travellers and Tour Operators can download and print these brochures if they need. It will help save time and cost involved in sending these brochures. They can also submit online requests for printed brochures, posters, CDs, DVDs and other promotional material produced by Kerala Tourism.
Royalty-free Video Clips on DVD
Following on the success of Picture CDs on Kerala, which made hi-res images on Kerala available to the tourism trade and media, Kerala Tourism is introducing two DVDs with royalty-free video clips on Kerala and Ayurveda. The tourism trade can use these clips free of cost in their promotional campaigns with due acknowledgement to Kerala Tourism.
The video clips will help single property owners or small/medium property owners with just one or two units in developing their promotional presentations. It will also help in disseminating higher quality video content on Kerala in the market.
Kerala Tourism has tied up with YouTube, the highly popular video sharing site and set up a branded channel www.youtube.com/keralatourismdotorg to promote its promotional video content worldwide. The channel not just promotes video content produced by Kerala Tourism, but also encourages users to produce and uplink their own videos on Kerala, thereby creating an enormous video content on Kerala online. It will help in Kerala videos being thrown up in search and in creating interest. The channel has received a stunning 1.2 million hits in the first 12 months of trial run.
Kerala Tourism's official website, www.keralatourism.org is today one of the world's most popular tourism sites. It was judged as the most visually appealing when it won the Net4 PC World Web Award in 2008. It also won the Government of India award for excellence for the 'Most Innovative Use of Information Technology and Best Tourism Website/Portal'. The official website currently receives around 4 million hits, with over 1,00,000 visitors and 5,00,000 page views a month.
