Kerala tourism goes hitech

Kerala Tourism, ahead of the new season starting in two months, will launch a fresh set of mobile-based services and IT-based projects to make the passage to God's Own Country a hassle-free and more pleasant experience.

The new products including a mobile website, WAP guide, applications and Bluetooth kiosks will be unveiled here Tuesday by Tourism Minister A.P. Anil Kumar."The world is making a transition from web-based tools to smart phone-based tools. Kerala Tourism is hence making another ground-breaking move with this new array of mobile products to seize the growing opportunity and stay put a notch above our competitors," said Kumar.For tourists travelling to Kerala, these products will prove to be their e-guardians by giving with a comprehensive supportive and protective cover rather than being just e-guides," added Kumar.

God's own country goes high tech

The Kerala Tourism website started with just 50 visitors a day in 1998 and today it gets 7000-8000 visits per day and more than 2.5 million visits a year.In addition, Kerala tourism is active in social media like You Tube with 3 million video views a year, 1.76 lakh fans on Facebook and 9,500 followers in Twitter.Kerala Tourism started exploring mobile technology as early as 2006.

"The visitors who are connected with their smart phones and mobile apps will be able to explore the destinations in the state without external support, but by using these unique products which will provide a wide range of features like tour planning, updates, guidance, destination details," said Kerala Tourism secretary Suman Billa.There were 5.9 billion mobile subscribers across the globe in the year 2011. Latest data shows that smart phones constituted 31.8 percent of the total shipment of mobile phones during the previous year.

"Besides these tools, the Tourism Department is setting up bluetooth kiosks matching with international standards at key places like international airports within the state to help the tourists coming to the state," said Tourism Director Rani George.

IANS