STEENA JOY – Mumbai
Tapping the tourism potential of in Wayanad is the next big thing to happen in the Kerala tourism scenario. This was stated by E K Bharat Bhushan, chief secretary, government of Kerala after inaugurating the B2B meet organised in connection with the fifth edition of Splash, the Wayanad monsoon carnival recently. “The exquisite natural habitat with much priced wildlife sanctuaries and proximity to cities like Bengaluru and other tourism destinations of South India has contributed to the potential of the destination,” he pointed out.
Hinting at the role of stakeholders in the hospitality sector in promoting Wayanad as a destination, Bhushan said that rather than the role of the government, the stakeholders’ forum played a key role in destination promotion. “I rather like to call them tourism activists than promoters”, he said.
Speaking to Express TravelWorld, Vancheeswaran K R, secretary, Wayanad Tourism Organisation (WTO) said, “We focused on the buyer-seller meet more in this edition of Splash than giving importance to other activities. In the B2B meet we had 80 sellers from Wayanad and the surrounding areas like Coorg, Mysore, Nilgiris, Kabini and Bandipur, which form an important tourism axis for future.We also had sellers from Bekal – Calicut, etc which forms the connect bridge to Wayanad through Kerala.”
The fifth edition of Splash, which ran from July 12-15, concluded with the finals of mud football, mud tug-of-war and ‘off roading’ vehicle rally competitions conducted in the jungle track inside the Vythiri Resort in Vythiri. Vancheeswaran added, “We had around 250-280 buyers from all over India. We focused on newer buyers from newer areas. We did have inbound buyers from Delhi like Sita /Kuoni etc. We also had good number of inbound from IATO. Overall the event helped us in our aim to improve business during the monsoon and promote monsoon related activities.”
