In a keenly fought online contest, 25 of the world’s top travel bloggers from a dozen countries have been selected for a trip on board the ‘Kerala Blog Express’ being organised the state tourism department.
The winners of the online voting were announced by Kerala Tourism Minister Shri A P Anil Kumar at a news conference in the state capital on Wednesday, February 26.
The ‘Kerala Blog Express’, a luxury bus carrying the winners of the competition, will be flagged off by Shri Anil Kumar from Thiruvananthapuram on March 10. The bus will travel along the length of Kerala from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasargod in a road trip lasting two weeks.
There are four winners each from the United States and India, followed by three each from Brazil and the Philippines and two each from Germany, Spain and Indonesia. The remaining five are from Denmark, Mexico, Poland, Italy and Portugal.
Shri Anil Kumar said it is one of the biggest tourism promotions to be undertaken by the state with the help of social media and hoped that the first-of-its-kind event will go a long way in boosting tourist arrivals in the state in the future.
The selected bloggers are all internationally renowned with a reputation of swaying travellers’ choice of destination through accounts of their journeys around the world. During the two weeks on the ‘Kerala Blog Express’, the participants will be writing on their experiences of ‘God’s Own Country’, reaching an audience of millions of people.
“Social media is changing the way people make travel decisions, it has a tremendous influence on the tourism sector,” said Tourism Secretary Shri Suman Billa. “With Kerala Blog Express we hope to leverage this power and promote our state globally.”
Many of the bloggers such as Inma Gregorio (Spain), Nelson Carvalheiro (Germany), Oscar Augusto (Brazil) and Gael Hilton (Philippines) enjoy a worldwide following and have been featured on international travel magazines like the National Geographic Magazine and Lonely Planet.
The luxury bus, branded specially for the campaign, will take the participants from Thiruvananthapuram to Kovalam before going to Varkala. The bus will also travel to the Great Backwaters of Kerala in Alappuzha and in Kumarakom, where the visitors are expected to get a first-hand experience of village life.
» Read Complete News.....(You need to login first to read complete news). New User? Register for FREE!
» Back to Travel News