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Kerala-
the right-choice Mice destination
By T. Damu
Right
climate round the year. Packed with a plethora of tourism
opportunities. Pouring business interests and rapid economic
growth. Three international airports strategically located
at equidistance and an ideally suited attractive
international convention center. Already established as
leisure and culture tourism destination, the God’s Own
Country is fast emerging as a business and meetings hot-hub,
better known as Meetings Incentives Conventions and
Exhibitions (MICE) destination.
Convention or business tourism is no more a conventional
type of tourism, which formerly meant only business and
nothing else. Things have changed for better. Business
combined with leisure is the take-me-all ticket to heaven.
After all who wants to come and gather in an exotic place
for just one purpose, spending hundreds or thousands of
dollars or any dough for that matter, only to pack up and go
off, after a sober and straight jacket-and-tie business
conference or a soul-rousing religious convention, without
experiencing the charm of the place visited? It is a waste!
Cochin City, which is
acclaimed as the Commercial Capital of Kerala, has hosted a
number of international conferences and other conventions
within the last five years. Take for example, the recently
held World Rubber Congress, World Ayurveda Congress, the
International Tea Conference, World Spice Congress, etc.,
just to name a few of the business kind. One of the
international conventions of religious nature was the Golden
Jubilee Birthday Celebratio ns
of Mata Amritananda Mayi that drew devotees in thousands
from all over the world. The Cochin city was chosen avenue
for the Global Industries Meet, and also the B2B meet that
were held in the past one-year.
Why all
this of-late happenings all of a sudden? Kerala figures as
one among the 50 millennium-destinations for tourists listed
by The National Geographic Traveler, some time ago. The only
other destination in India is the Taj Mahal! Almost all the
leading magazines and travel guides around the world – Time,
Travel & Leisure, Cosmopolitan, Lonely Planet, Le Guide du
Routard and others have gone over board to praise the
travel-worthy Kerala. You don’t call a lady voluptuously
beautiful just like that, if she is not actually one of a
kind!
As one of
the ten must-see tourists destinations in the world,
Kerala’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is her alluring
gift in the form of beautiful beaches, fantastic lakes, and
eye-catching islands surrounded by vast stretches of
backwaters ideal for hydel-tourism. The backwater tourism in
“the Venice of South India” is one of the biggest
attractions.
Out of
the 18 “global hotspots” of bio-diversity, which represent
high areas of endemism and significant threat of imminent
extinctions, three lie in the Indian subcontinent. One is
the Western Ghats. The other two are the East Himalayas and
the Indo-Burmese region. Of these three, the most potential
tourists’ destination is the Western Ghats in Kerala.
Realizing this, the Tourism Department is on a green path,
rolling out and regularizing eco-tourism in the State.
Talk
about culture, religion and heritage, Kerala’s richness
stumps you straightaway. The first mosque in India, the
first church in India, one of the oldest synagogues in
India, some of the oldest churches of almost all the
Christian congregations in India, some of the finest Shivite
and Vaishnavite temples in India etc., etc., are all here.
Kalaripayittu – the father of martial arts, Koodiyattam –
the mother of folk dances of south India, the only metal
mirror making village in the world, the only awe-inspiring
uproarious speeding race of giants of snake boats in the
world………you have them all in Kerala, the land of myriad
experiences. You will fall in love with Kerala at first
sight! It is not just God’s Own Country, it is Goddess’ Own
Country too!
Kerala
cuisine is unique and Kerala’s hospitality in superb. You
won’t believe it unless you experience it. It is here that
the first grand style of public and private sector joint
venture in hospitality industry took shape, with the Taj
Group of Hotels joining hands with the Kerala Tourism
Development Corporation in the name of Taj Kerala Hotels and
Resorts Limited. The TKHRL has four properties in Kerala –
in Ernakulam, Kumarakom, Varkala and Thekkady – each one of
them providing different natural-ambient experience. The
Oberoi Group of Hotels followed suit to sign a joint venture
with Kerala Tourism.
Let’s
taste a bit of history of hospitality industry in Kerala.
Taj Malabar is one of the six Taj properties in Kerala and
the only leisure hotel in Kerala with a five-star deluxe
status. The history of the hotel dates back to 1930s. Iin
1934 some shipping lines were interested in bringing
passenger vessels to Cochin. The Bibby Line owners indicated
their willingness to call at the Cohin Harbour if there was
proper lighting for the outer channel and a hotel
accommodation for disembarking passengers. In October 1934,
the Madras Presidency agreed to construct a hostel mainly
for the mariners. Sir Robert Bristow, engineer-in-charge and
the brain behind the carving of Willingdon Island “from the
bottom of the sea”, was put in charge of constructing the
hostel. The hostel took shape on March 8, 1935 and the
following day the first batch of mariners of the Bibby Line
checked in. That was the beginning of a long saga of
hospitality in the shores of Kerala. The hostel was later
renamed the Malabar Hotel, which was taken over by the Taj
Group in 1986 that speeded up its metamorphosis into one of
the finest hotels in Kerala.
Kerala
Travel Mart, the biennial travel and tourism business event
actually throws open the appropriate windows of tourism
opportunities that are available in Kerala. The world is
waking up to the seductive charm of this beautiful land,
seeing her as one of the most ideal and fast emerging MICE
destinations in South Asia. Any time is convention time
here!
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