Best Value Destination 2010
Published November 4, 2009 | Lonely Planet has declared that India will be one of the world’s top ten best value destinations in 2010 with a special focus on the tourist destinations of Goa, Pushkar and Kerala. In their reporting, the daily Telegraph featured a picture of the chinese nets in Cochin.
2008 and 2009 has been a torrid time for the tourism business in Kerala as elsewhere. Kerala has been especially effected by the demise of package flights to Trivandrum. Thomas Cook, Manos & Airtours all ceased their weekly Gatwick to Trivandum winter flight for the 2009 winter season.
Large hotels that had been preoccupied with package visitors are now frantically visiting travel agencies to drum up business. For many travel agencies there is only minimal sympathy after so many years of being rebuffed by these hotels. The problem is especially acute in Kovalam where the package holiday makers used to congregate. Backpackers are still visiting but the more affluent holiday makers are not heading west to the Americas or further east to Thailand or the re-emerging Sri Lanka.
