For 2013-14, Kerala’s tourism industry has netted a record revenue of Rs 24,000 crore, compared to Rs 22,000 crore the previous year. While tourist arrivals have topped 1.15 crore this year, Kerala Tourism Secretary Suman Billa estimates that “with the definition of ‘tourist’ being amorphous, somebody going from Trivandrum to Kochi to visit his uncle for a day or returning from a day’s business trip to Delhi, is also a traveller.”

But taking into account such “definition issues”, Kerala gets about 10 lakh foreign visitors a year, and “these are mostly upper-end leisure tourists”.

Tourism revenues make up for one tenth of the State’s GDP, and brought in foreign exchange worth Rs 5,000 crore, the second highest after remittances. The focus has traditionally been on high-end tourism - those who would spend $100-plus on a hotel room per night. “For us tourism is just a business like any other. With the time of a traveller being limited you have to get as much revenue as possible,” says Billa.

In the “classified sector” Kerala has 60,000 hotel rooms, not including home stays and other informal arrangements.

Ayurveda attraction

Ayurveda is of course the biggest draw for foreign arrivals and spending. Thanks to Ayurvedic treatments requiring a two to four week stay, the average stay of an international tourist in Kerala is a surprisingly high 18.6 nights, “among the highest in the world.” The number was 17.1 nights per visitor barely a few years ago.

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