THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Driven by brand new content and fascinating visuals, the sleek, interactive and information-laden Facebook page of Kerala Tourism has hit a new high, emerging as the most followed tourism page in South Asia and also overtaking Tourism Malaysia, Singapore & Thailand by a fair margin.
The number of ‘likes’ on Kerala Tourism’s Facebook page has tripled in the past two years, touching a figure of 3,481,239 , thus eclipsing the popular social media platform of Tourism Malaysia that has 3.3 million, Visit Singapore 3.2million and Amazing Thailand 2.6 million likes. Internationally, now only three countries—Australia with 8.3 million, Go USA with 6.7 million Visit Dubai with 6.7 likes—are ahead of Kerala. It is to be noted that we are just a state tourism board not a large country.
When compared with the portals of other tourism departments in the country, Kerala retains its number one position by a huge margin. It is followed by Gujarat (1,336,836likes), Madhya Pradesh (1,198,165), Rajasthan (588,453), Uttarakhand (494,992) and Odisha (238,143).
“It gives me immense pleasure and a feeling of pride to note that Kerala Tourism’s social media page has now become the second most followed in the whole of Asia after ‘Visit Dubai’,” said Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran. “The enviable feat has been achieved by a sustained social media and digital media campaign, especially ‘Human by Nature’ video film, which focused on the people of Kerala and garnered 15 million views,” he added.
The minister also mentioned ‘Kerala Tales Video Campaign’, a series of 50 plus videos based on authentic stories from the state, garnered over 60 million views online. These videos were published online in the past year.
Tourism Secretary Rani George said one of the contributory factors to the impressive growth on social media platform is a sound content strategy based on engagement data analysis. “It has helped us to fine-tune our content for better reach and create specific content for audiences with specific interests,” she observed.
Besides generating appealing content, efforts were made for posting vernacular updates in seven Indian languages to cater to the domestic audience, George said. “Social media has helped us transcend geographies and connect with all segments of the population,” she added.
Tourism Director P Bala Kiran said social media platforms have become an effective tool in this techno-savvy age to propagate, publicise and keep abreast of developments in any area, especially in the tourism sector where social media influencers play a key role.
“Our aim is to become the best Facebook page in the world by 2021. The burgeoning popularity of our user-friendly Facebook page has been powered by rich content and influencer programmes like Kerala Blog Express, now in its sixth edition, to tap into the power of the social media influencer.
Last year, Kerala Tourism had overtaken Jammu & Kashmir and Gujarat Tourism’s Facebook page and secured the first spot in the ranking based on total engagement with tourists that included reactions, shares, and comments on the page. It was in August 2014 that it had crossed the one million mark.
Apart from Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/keralatourismofficial/), Kerala Tourism has an active presence on Twitter (1.8 million) and Instagram (225K).
