The Kerala Travel Mart, an annual travel event showcasing the tourism potential of the South Indian state of Kerala, is to be held in September.
The seventh edition of the Kerala Travel Mart is to be held from September 27 to 30. The event has attracted much attention from international as well as domestic buyers and service providers. So far, about 460 international buyers and 1,245 domestic buyers have registered for the event, which is double the response by the same time last year.
The KTM Society has 599 members in the state and includes various businesses such as airlines, ayurveda centres, farm-stays, home-stays, hotels, speciality hospitals, resorts, travel agents, adventure tour operators etc.
The event is basically a buyer-seller meeting that is being organised under the banner of private-public-partnership. Participants will have the opportunity to directly assess the services being offered and use them to their benefit. The event is also planning to provide buyers from certain South American and East European countries with some financial assistance, as these economies are under financial pressure at the moment.
Already hotels have set aside 800 rooms, free of charge, to accommodate guests. A post-mart tour will be arranged for buyers and they will also be provided with free transport.
An official organising the event said, ‘For the first time, we have decided to give bar-coded identity cards to all the invitees, and this will enable us to find out how much time each buyer spends with the sellers. Besides, before the mart starts each buyer and seller will know how many appointments they have because we will have an online appointment facility.’
