Statistics Book 2007.pdf - Kerala Tourism

Therefore permanent staff is able to do relatively more justice to the sales of the handicrafts
and it is very important for the Kerala Govt. to start building the capacities of these team
members for handling effective sales and marketing from these outlets. The sales staff has to be
trained in the soft skills such as Sales & Merchandising, Retail Outlet Management, Customer
Care and Back-Room Effective Inventory Management.
• Only 10 outlets have temporary personnel and among them 46% had only 2 casual staff. The
average number of employees in these outlets is 5.
• Only 20% of the Outlets earn more than 25% of their income from tourists and their main source
of income is non tourists. This probably could be due to the fact that the source of income is
from sales of handicrafts in the merchandising segment and in the domestic market.
• Both the foreign and domestic tourists spend very little in purchasing handicrafts and souvenirs
in Kerala. As per Ministry of Tourism, Govt. of India’s estimates of the year 2002; a foreign tourist
spends Rs.12, 187/- on handicrafts. Silk remains one of the most sought after value items amongst
the tourists and 23% of the total expenditure was on silk alone. Other handicraft items of high
value bought by respondent tourists include metal and jewellery, cotton and wool textiles and
leather products. CTS have revealed average spending on the handicrafts by the foreign tourists
in the year 2005-2006, Rs. 244/- by domestic tourists and Rs. 294/- by foreign tourists.
• Moreover as per MOT estimates, the handicrafts have shown an increasing trend amongst the
foreign tourists aged between 25 and 54 years of age and it declined thereafter. The UNESCO
Craft/Tourism Index was found to be Rs. 609 (about US$13) and as per Govt. of India estimates
about one fifth of the total tourists interviewed during the survey had incurred total expenditure
exclusively on handicraft items beyond Rs. 5,000 and upto Rs. 10,000/-.
• Eighty percent of the handicraft outlets earn only Rs.50,000/- or less. The average monthly
earnings is Rs.42,700/-.
• Half of the outlets pay 6-10% of their monthly earnings as tax while 20% outlets pay more than
10%.
• Only 20% of the outlets earn more than 25% of their income from tourists. Even though the
outlets are in the tourist destinations most of their earnings are from the local people (nontourists)
and possible merchandizing.
It would be desirable for Kerala Tourism to construct UNESCO Crafts-Index for the State; in order to
motivate foreign as well as domestic tourists to buy more Handicrafts. The UNESCO Crafts-Tourism Index
is defined as expenditure on Handicrafts per tourist per day of stay in US Dollars. This shall enable the
Kerala Tourism to know where it stands on its ability to make the tourists spend their money for the
state’s crafts. The state can make use of this information to improve its performance compared to other
states.
B. Tour & Travel Establishments Survey:
There are 39 members of the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) operating from Trivandrum and
more than 40 Members from Kochi. There is IATA as well as non-IATA registered Tour Operators in Kerala
State. The Skal International Association comprising of eminent Tour Operators, Travel Agencies, Airlines
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