The beautiful state of Kerala has been tied up with a lot of challenges in the recent past. The Nipah Virus attack, followed by the thundering Monsoon and the flood after that have brought Kerala a popular name in the media for unfortunate reasons. Kerala has been inviting traveler across the world to enjoy the beauty within here, the backwaters, the hill stations, the river, beaches, people, art & culture are a few of them traveler love to talk about. The tropical beauty of Kerala just got faded by the mid of the August. There were torrential rains which came in multiple series, the dams were filled to capacity, and finally, all of the water had to be drained out, along with the rain, a flood was developed mostly on river banks and catastrophic landslides in the mountains.
The Tragedy
It was a hard time for people in certain part of Kerala. The most affected places were the hills and people living mostly on the river banks which overflowed into the housing colonies and residential area. People were evacuated to safe camps and flood relief centers. The homes and public infrastructure were submerged under water for four days which brought chaos. It was difficult to find food, water, power for lighting. Everyone joined together to steer the rescue and relief operations which were a boom to the elderly, women and children. India together stood in oneness where people from different walks of life contributed to the relief and rehabilitation of the state. Different organisation across the world helped us from recovering the situation.
Rescue & Relief
It did not take much time for Kerala to bounce back. They said "We are down, but not out" large scale cleaning campaigns and efforts resulted in a quick come back. The roads and public infrastructure that was destroyed in the floods were back into work within a couple of weeks. The unity in diversity has brought a lot of goodness to the state. However hearing a lot about the floods in Kerala, travelers across the world are kind of stuck in deciding whether they should be visiting Kerala this time. But the fact is that Kerala has returned into her normalcy and is waiting to receive guests. If you travel across Kerala, one will find it difficult to identify flood-hit places, things have a changed a lot in a couple of weeks.
The Tourism Segment
We at Green Earth Trails believe that it is the empowerment of people that will allow them to bounce back from the situation. The tourism segments in Kerala which contribute to more than 10% of the GDP was struck drastically. The industry directly and indirectly employ more than a million people bringing home a total revenue of 33,383 crore rupees every year. The roads, the infrastructure, and people were hit terribly. The future was also at stake as travellers bound to Kerala might fear of an epidemic outbreak. Foreign governments, advise and refrain their people from traveling to such places. There has been no massive outbreak of diseases reported in Kerala. Individual cases cannot be counted in general, which happens here and there irrespective of the floods. The fact remains that
"Kerala is back in action and
we are waiting for our guests"
The Kerala Travel Mart
The Kerala Travel Mart is a biyearly tourism meet up held in Kochi. Many travel facilitators and travel service buyers across the country come for the tourism meet-up to know more about the destination and the new programs, services and activities that could be incorporated in upcoming tours. This year, there are more than 350 international buyers and 1000 domestic buyers who are coming down to Kerala from the 27th to the 30th of September 2018 to attend the 7th Edition of Kerala Travel Mart. The inaugural ceremony is held at the Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty, and the event is held at the Samudrika convention center at Wellington Island in Fort Kochi. We are also part of the Kerala Travel Mart, and you can come down to visit our stall No. C-3. We could meet up over a coffee. There has not been a single cancellation of delegates, especially the international buyers who are coming for the event.
"KTM has a come as blessing in disguise for us, the reason being that, we have 1200 tour operators visiting Kerala. They can see for themselves that how safe is Kerala and everything is back" Said Mr. Sejoe, Chairman of IATA, Kerala Chapter.
We look forward to KTM - 2018 as a tool to leverage the image of Kerala from a terrible flood-hit South Indian state to what it is really is in fact today. When you come down to Kerala, it is not just that you are enjoying a holiday in this beautiful tropical paradise, you are being a part of the rebuilding process in Kerala.