KOCHI:
Kerala Travel Mart (KTM) is receiving warm response ahead for its 11th edition this September, with nearly 1,000 people proposing participation within the first three weeks of registration for the country’s biggest tourism event.
July 31 is the last date for pre-registration of what is the country’s biggest tourism event that will bring entrepreneurs across India and abroad to the state’s products and services in the travel industry. The three-day biennial event, starting after the inauguration on September 24 evening, will be held at the Sagara and Samudrika Convention Centre of Cochin Port Trust in Willingdon Island here.
As pre-registrations started on January 20, as many as 548 applications have come in from within the country, 165 from abroad. These include 47 entries from the international media and 21 from the domestic. The 2000-founded KTM Society is the biggest tourism body of Kerala.
The organisers scrutinise the applications for the event that gives opportunities to world-class buyers and sellers to share the platform so as to interact and promote businesses.
“The pre-registration rush shows that KTM continues to show the faith people have in the event,” said KTM President Baby Mathew Somatheeram. “The 2018 KTM could give Kerala’s tourism to new direction and fresh energy after the natural calamity the state faced that year. The coming edition, too, will toe that line, aiming to present innovative products and services that can rejuvenate the sector,” he added.
KTM 2020 will accord importance to the Kerala Tourism’s pioneering Champions Boat League (CBL) modelled on IPL cricket. Adventure tourism will be another priority area of KTM 2020, besides efforts to boost new products in activities such as trekking, mountaineering, river rafting, paragliding and off-roading.
KTM 2018 had 1,305 buyers, a third of them from foreign nations. Those from abroad totalled 442: buyers from 58 countries including the US, Russia, Japan, China, Australia and Britain. The domestic buyers totalled 863. The sellers had set up 313 stalls in an expansive venue of 75,000 square feet, showcasing a wide array of products and services and drawing encouraging response from the general public as well. The focal subjects were rainwater conservation, lessening the use of plastic and increasing greenery.
The KTM 2018 edition (September 27-30), also at Kochi, was inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. It had Responsible Tourism and Malabar Tourism as the core themes. With public-private participation as a key feature, that KTM had its delegates from the fields of travel and tour, hotels and resorts, home-stay, houseboat, ayurveda centres and cultural organisations.
