Tourism in India has generated around Rs 16.91 lakh crore ($240 billion), which is 9.2 percent of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2018. And about 12 per cent of Kerala’s GDP comes from this sector. The state has rebounded quickly from the devastating floods and the Nipah scare in 2018, and received a large inflow of both international and domestic tourists. According to an Economic Times report, Kerala recorded a 6 per cent growth in tourist arrivals in 2018 as against the previous year. The growth in the first quarter of this year has been impressive too, with a 12.36 growth in foreign and 20 per cent increase in domestic tourists.

Kerala Tourism is now looking East trying to tap the Chinese market—targeting the young travellers—as it registers a high number of young, educated and resource-rich travel lovers. But India is yet to figure in their list of top eight destinations for the Chinese travellers. And Kerala sees very few Chinese travellers and in 2018, less than 10,000 arrived—still a significant jump from the previous year.

At the recently concluded third edition of International Conference on Tourism Technology organised by Association of Tourism Trade Organisations (ATTOI), India  in collaboration with Kerala Tourism, Beijing-based tourism expert Richard Matuzevich of the World Tourism Cities Federation, who presented a session on ‘How to do Social Media Tourism Promotion to get Chinese Tourists’ stated that India can woo high-spending Chinese tourists by improving basic infrastructure and by providing exceptional service. “Chinese travellers are boosting the tourism sector all over the world and with the opening up of the market, it holds a huge market potential in India.”