The various industries and their ancillary units comprising the tourism industry in Kerala are primarily concerned with ‘people’. Indeed, one of the most important motivations for generating international travel is ‘meeting with people’ or ‘seeing how other people live’. Tourism in Kerala, therefore, can bring benefits other than the more obvious and direct economic gains of contributing to the balance of payments, increasing the national income and providing employment opportunities.
Although, these are not always possible to quantify, there are considerable social benefits in the contacts made through visitors who develop new tastes and become interested in new activities. Thus, it is highly essential that while promoting tourism, emphasis should be on the people. InKerala holidays witness a marked increase in tourists at all the prominent tourism centers and parks. This provides ample evidence to the shift in the preferences of the people.
Tourism in Kerala thrives on the natural values. But the number of such natural values is fixed and immobile. This imposes a constraint on the development of tourism. All the natural biodiversity reserves are shut out to tourists and other visitors in order to preserve the natural biodiversities.
Tourism in Kerala, being a service industry, its product is of a perishable nature. Prof. Howard Meek, former Dean of the School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University observed: “There is no commodity more perishable than a hotel room. If it is not sold tonight, it can never be sold”. To this is added the rigidity caused by heavy investment in fixed infrastructures like roads, accommodation and transportation. In the short run, the supply of this infrastructure is inelastic. Further, the ‘underutilization’ of some of these resources poses a serious problem. The tourist trade is also not very responsive to price changes in Kerala. Dissemination of information regarding price changes is also taking a long time to reach the target groups and is not very effective. Thus major changes in the tourism sector are long overdue.
Although, these are not always possible to quantify, there are considerable social benefits in the contacts made through visitors who develop new tastes and become interested in new activities. Thus, it is highly essential that while promoting tourism, emphasis should be on the people. In
Tourism in Kerala thrives on the natural values. But the number of such natural values is fixed and immobile. This imposes a constraint on the development of tourism. All the natural biodiversity reserves are shut out to tourists and other visitors in order to preserve the natural biodiversities.
Tourism in Kerala, being a service industry, its product is of a perishable nature. Prof. Howard Meek, former Dean of the School of Hotel Administration, Cornell University observed: “There is no commodity more perishable than a hotel room. If it is not sold tonight, it can never be sold”. To this is added the rigidity caused by heavy investment in fixed infrastructures like roads, accommodation and transportation. In the short run, the supply of this infrastructure is inelastic. Further, the ‘underutilization’ of some of these resources poses a serious problem. The tourist trade is also not very responsive to price changes in Kerala. Dissemination of information regarding price changes is also taking a long time to reach the target groups and is not very effective. Thus major changes in the tourism sector are long overdue.