A 34-member incentive tourist team from Paris has come as a ray of hope for India when the tourist arrivals have dropped to 5.22 lakh in December 2008 from 5.96 lakh tourists in December 2007.
The Winners Club of Emailvision Inc, Europe?s top-billed email software player, has descended on the backwaters of Kerala to celebrate the company?s 15% surge in business last year. Emailvision, a high-end holidayer, spends over $3,000 per person on its incentive holidays. The team this year was cherry picked for their performance in 2008, drawn up from its offices across the globe.
?Since real time marketing was pushing costs, slump-hit firms were receptive to our marketing software and this improved our fortunes,? said Richard Marsh of Emailvision. ?Since we have sweated it out, we were very choosy about our annual holiday destination,? he added. Kerala was chosen as the preferred destination over Vietnam and Bangkok.
Fried black pearl spot fish, wooden rice boats cruising across calm lagoons, coconut-palm fringed beaches and Ayurvedic rubdowns are some of the enticements that are incorporated to customize packages made by Tour India which provides treehouse and houseboat accommodation in Kerala. The package also includes things such as night cruises in lamp-decked boats and lending a helping hand to groups of fishermen.
According to Guy Porre, general manager, EmailVision, the Indian experience will surely lead to positive word-of-mouth publicity among corporates scouting for incentive destinations. ?We did stop once to rethink on hearing about some kind of communal-tinged terrorist attacks in Mumbai,? admits Nathaniel, part of the team, ?But once we landed at the beach resort in Chovara, Kovalam, our impression changed. We have been offered Ayurvedic massages by two people belonging to different religions. It?s almost like a spiritual experience.?
?It?s the traditionally-crafted timber boats without engines, air conditioning and televisions that make the holiday unique for the high-spending tourists. European jetsetters do not look for modern luxuries in their holidays. They look for shared life experiences laced with ethnicity,? said Christophe Sentuc, member of the team. Unlike domestic tourists, international incentive tourists respect the ban on footwear and foreign liquor on the kettuvellam (houseboat that is made of rope made out of coconut bark) cruise from Kollam to Kochi. ?What the tourists enjoy most are cruise surprise?like when a toddyshop vendor offers them a sip of the local brew or a gift packet of local traditional robes,? adds Tour India, chief managing director, Babu Varghese. Babu Varghese reinvented the obsolete Kerala rice barge and turned it into the state?s best known tourism icon across the globe.
After Varghese crafted the first timber boat for backwater cruises 20 years ago, there are now 960 vessels plying on Kerala backwaters, employing over 8,500 people.