THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For the second consecutive year, the Tourism Department has decided not to romanticise the rains during the off-season.
Five years ago, this elemental ritual that begins from June was sought to be employed to convert Kerala into a 360 degree destination. The strategy was found to be counterproductive.
As a consequence, from 2014, both the Tourism Department and the industry had hushed up any talk of the rains while luring domestic tourists to the beach.
For tourists, rains seem more repulsive than seductive. Traditionally, the off-season in the state kicks off with the arrival of southwest monsoon in June.
“This time, with the unexpected summer, the off-season has begun in May itself,” said Kerala Hotel and Restaurants Association president G Sudhiesh Kumar who runs Hotel Seaface
in Kovalam. “In fact a regular guest of ours from Belgium cut short their visit and checked out saying that they were here to enjoy the sun and not the rains,” he added.
In 2013, when the southwest monsoon was the heaviest in over a decade, the magic downpour instead of stoking the fire of romance in visiting couples had lulled them into boredom.
“When it rains, every spark turns into a flame,” is how Kerala Tourism sought to romanticize the monsoon. But what the rains did was it poured cold water over the enthusiasm of the tourist.
During a stakeholder meeting held a couple of months ago, representatives of the industry had told the planners that the selling monsoons was doing more harm than good.
“Last time a number of business conventions were first postponed and eventually got organized in other destinations because of the heavy rains,” said Joseph Mathew, the CEO of Hotel Emerald Green in Edappally, Kochi.
It is not as if rains have no charm for tourists. “There are tourists who ask for it and for them we have organised activities like rain dance,” Mr Mathew said. These activities are not dependant on the rains as it is artificially created.
