Chief Minister to open Kerala Travel Mart in Kochi
Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the 10th edition of Kerala Travel Mart (KTM) at Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty today (September 27) at 6 pm. Union Minister of State for Tourism K J Alphons will be the chief guest at the mart.
Organised by KTM Society, in partnership with Kerala Tourism, the event has Malabar Tourism as its focal theme this edition. The business-to-business meetings will be conducted at Samudrika and Sagara Convention Centre at Willington Island in Kochi from September 28 to 30.
Over 30,000 meetings among 1,600 buyers from around the world and 325 sellers of Kerala’s tourism products are expected at the mart. The last day of KTM is open for public.
“We see the travel mart as an apt opportunity to showcase before the world Kerala’s ability to overcome a calamity as grave as floods and landslips that shook the State in August,” said Baby Mathew Somatheeram, President of KTM Society.
545 buyers from 66 countries would be participating in the event. “The number of buyers registered a 125 per cent increase compared to the previous edition of KTM. The number of domestic buyers too would see an increase to 1090, an increase of 75 per cent compared to the last year,” he said.
The mart’s key areas of focus would be rainwater and energy conservation, reliance on domestic products, lesser usage of plastic and scientific garbage management.
There will be four seminars, besides exhibitions and business meets. The KTM Society has also arranged a familiarisation trip for the to see for themselves road connectivity and infrastructure that have been restored post the floods.