Thiruvananthapuram, Tuesday 24 November 2009: Kerala has tied up with Google to promote its tourism through search and banner advertisements on the search engine.

This is the first time a state tourism department is partnering with the global search engine for such an advertisement campaign, Google officials have said.

Narasimha Jayakumar, business head of Google India, told sources that the three-month campaign started last week and the responses had been “tremendous”.

Now, if somebody sitting in Britain, the US, Canada or India does a Google search on something related to tourism, Kerala Tourism’s website link will appear on the right side of the page along with the search results.

“A click on that (link) would lead the person to get all information on Kerala Tourism,” Jayakumar said.

He, however, declined to reveal the cost of the campaign, which started at a “right time” as the state’s tourist season has just begun.

“The beauty of our service is that Kerala Tourism will get ready information on responses at real time. We are certain that through this campaign, the number of visitors to the Kerala Tourism website will go up by 40 percent,” Jayakumar added.

Early this month, the tourism industry in the state got a huge boost when a survey, conducted by the National Geographic Society’s Centre for Sustainable Destinations, rated the backwaters here as the world’s 23rd best destination.

Jayakumar said a Google team would meet the leading players of Kerala’s tourist industry Dec 25-26, seeking alliances with them.

Over the years, the tourism industry in the state has recorded a consistent growth.

Last year, the state’s tourism revenue grew by 14.84 percent, while the total tourist arrival rose by 14.41 percent.

According to Google, the travel and tourism sector is the largest e-commerce category for them in India and there has been a 55 percent increase year-on-year in the hotel searches since 2007.

“We are expecting that soon this campaign could be seen on Youtube like the ‘Incredible India’ campaign, which became a huge success,” Jayakumar added.