Kerala Tourism’s German (left) and French pages.
By Ashraf Padanna/Kochi
The tourism board of the southern Indian state of Kerala has become the first in the country to open official pages on the social media in foreign languages.
To reach out to the French and German-speaking audience, the state tourism department has launched two new Facebook pages, in French and German, the most spoken languages by foreign tourists in Kerala after English.
The pages contain details of the destinations in French at https://www.facebook.com/KeralaTourismeOfficiel and in German at https://www.facebook.com/KeralaTourismus to help visitors plan their activities well in advance and to enable others to understand the experience offered by “God’s Own Country.”
The official Facebook page of Kerala Tourism is hugely popular among global travellers. Started in 2009, the Kerala Tourism Facebook page today has 85,000 fans, the tourism board said in a statement yesterday.
France is the second biggest foreign market for Kerala after the United Kingdom. Nearly 100,000 French tourists had visited the state last year. Germany is also a key market for Kerala as the country ranks on top of the list for foreign tourists arriving in the state for Ayurveda treatment. “It is very important for us to communicate in various languages of the world,” said A P Anil Kumar, the state’s minister for tourism who has been aggressively wooing foreign tourists through worldwide roadshows despite the financial meltdown. “There are people around the world who love Kerala and it makes a lot of difference when we reach out to them in their own language”.
The French and German pages are interactive and reader-friendly with photographs and descriptions, giving glimpse of key destinations across the state from the backwaters and the popular hill station of Munnar, to the elephant camps in Konni.
The Facebook pages, however, are not just about destinations. The Kerala Tourism has also taken the initiative to spread the knowledge of Ayurveda, the age-old tradition that has its roots in Kerala, targeting travellers seeking wellness and therapeutic solutions.
The Kerala Tourism already has well established Facebook pages on Ayurveda in English (https://www.facebook.com/KeralaHomeOfAyurveda) and German (https://www.facebook.com/KeralaHeimatDesAyurveda).
The English page, considered the most comprehensive Facebook page on Ayurveda, has more than 100,000 fans while the German page has over 4,500 active fans, mainly based in German-speaking countries.
“In the technology-driven world of today where information can be made available on mobile phones and computer screens, the choice of language plays a significant role, especially to reach out to a wider audience,” said Kerala Tourism Secretary Suman Billa. “Language should not be a barrier in connecting with people,” he added.
Kerala Tourism Director S Harikishore said the new initiative was part of the department’s efforts to substantially increase foreign tourist arrivals. “Europe is a major market for Kerala in the tourism sector and we will take all the necessary steps to cater to the different countries and regions in the continent,” he said.
Last month, Kerala Tourism organised road shows in Paris and Barcelona besides participating in the leading travel industry fair, Top Reza, in France in September.
Kerala Tourism’s campaign to promote Ayurveda, titled, ‘Kerala, The Home to Ayurveda,’ among international travellers was launched last year at the ITB, Berlin, the world’s top travel and tourism industry event.
Kerala Tourism has won several national and international awards for its website. The Kerala Tourism’s Twitter account is the most followed among tourism boards in the country with more than 20,425 followers.
The state tourism department has also launched official accounts on multiple social media platforms such as Instagram (http://instagram.com/keralatourism), pinterest (http://www.pinterest.com/ktofficial/) and LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/company/keralatourism) for taking its social media efforts to the next level.
These new accounts are also being welcomed wholeheartedly by the netizens with the Instagram account already posting more than 200 followers and the Pinterest over 150.