Domestic, foreign tourist arrivals go up in Kerala after floods

Thiruvananthapuram: Riding on a swift recovery from one of the worst natural calamities, Kerala has regained the pre-floods tourist footfalls, registering an impressive growth rate of 14.81 per cent in the second quarter of the current year. Particularly satisfying for Kerala Tourism was the fact that it bucked the negative trend in foreign tourist arrivals in the aftermath of last year's devastating floods, attracting 1,82,320 visitors from abroad in the second quarter of the ongoing year, a growth rate of 8.74 per cent as compared to the same period in the previous year. As for domestic tourists, the number went up by 6,24,617 when compared with the figures of corresponding period in the previous year, an increase of 15.05 per cent, the release said. Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran said the positive growth rate in tourist arrivals was achieved by a string of measures the government undertook swiftly to repair the damage caused by the floods to tourism infrastructure. In fact, 11 of the 14 districts registered positive growth rate in foreign tourist arrivals during April-June this year as compared to the figures of the corresponding period a year earlier.