THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kick-starting the first phase of its international tourism promotion campaigns for 2018-19 from September, Kerala Tourism will take part in six trade fairs and organize 15 B2B (business-to-business) meets to lure foreign tourists, with an increased focus on Russia, Japan and China.The trade fairs are World Travel Market (WTM), London (November 5-7), PATA Travel Mart in Langkawi, Malaysia (September 12-14), OTDYKH Leisure, Moscow, (September 11-13), JATA Tourism Expo, Tokyo (September 20-23), ITB Asia, Singapore (October 17-19) and CITM, Shanghai, China (November 16-18).Though hoteliers and tour operators comprise a major chunk of the participants usually, approved or classified Ayurveda centres too would be in the limelight in events in countries like Japan and Russia, said an official. “The department has also been doing promotions more intensively in markets like China and Japan for the past couple of years, and the number of tourists from these countries is on a rise,” the official pointed out.The road shows (B2B Meets) will begin with the one at St Petersburg in Russia and at Osaka in Japan on September17. The month will also witness road shows in Stockholm, Sweden and in Tokyo, Japan. From October, the meets will be organized in Riyadh and Dammam in Saudi Arabia , Manama (Bahrain), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Auckland ( New Zealand ), Sydney and Melbourne (Australia), Munich and Frankfurt (Germany) and in Guangzhou and Beijing (China).The online registration for taking part in the events in the three-month long campaign is on and will be open till July 25, the tourism official said. “We usually have 15-20 participants from Kerala in major trade fairs and around five in minor ones. The road shows too will have around 15 to 20 participants, and they are chosen on a first come, first served basis,” he added.The phase I campaign of 2017-18 had featured events in 12 countries, while the second phase (January-March 2018) had witnessed Kerala Tourism travelling to Netherlands (Vakantiebeurs tourism-leisure fair), Spain (FITUR) and to German cities of Dusseldorf Hamburg with road shows.The tourism department, at the beginning of 2018, had also organized road shows in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, all in the US, besides in emerging West Asian markets like Qatar, Oman, and the UAE.

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