KERALA STATE TOURISM IN NEW PUSH TO EXPAND GLOBAL AYURVEDA CAMPAIGN
Arab News
Monday, March 10, 2014

In the monsoonal blast of June-July that washes Kerala off its heat and humidity in the Arabian Sea, the southern Indian state unleashed the curative power and grandeur of the millennia-old Ayurveda as a formidable tourism advertisement. While Kerala’s famed beaches and backwaters took a temporary backseat during the downpour, Ayurveda, the ancient healing and wellness system played the game-changer for the state’s tourism.

“Basically, it was a metro-centric media campaign where we highlighted rejuvenation as one of the key elements of Ayurveda to attract tourists. The Middle East has huge potential for Ayurveda tourism as the Arabs are now showing interest in Ayurveda as a cure for their lifestyle diseases. Suman Billa, secretary-tourism, said.

Kerala Tourism has already set the ball rolling by launching two e-books on Ayurveda to reach a global audience fascinated by alternative systems of medicine. The books, released by state Tourism Minister A.P. Anil Kumar, are the first electronic publication of its kind by a tourism board in the country.

The e-books on Ayurveda are the award-winning coffee table books "Panchakarma: Ayurveda’s Mantra of Rejuvenation," explaining panchakarma as a holistic rejuvenation therapy to detoxify and revitalize the body system; and "Ayurveda: The Mantra of Niramaya," an introduction to the medicine system using texts from ancient scripts to modern research papers. These e-books, available at online stores for purchase for easy reading on e-book readers, mobile phones or computer screens, are part of Kerala Tourism’s continuing efforts to inform the global audience about Ayurveda, which is practiced in its purest form in the state.

“Ayurveda, especially its Panchakarma treatment, brings repeat tourists, which is vital to ensure operations for Ayurveda hospitals and resorts,” the tourism secretary said, adding that the state’s excellent institutions like Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala, Vaidyaratnam, Nagarjuna, Somatheeram and Pankaj Kasturi College of Ayurveda are providing treatments of unmatched quality. Significantly, Ayurveda has made Kerala a long-haul destination with tourists’ stay going up to 18 days, the highest in the country — at least 14 days for rejuvenation and four days of sightseeing.

“The importance of Ayurveda stems from this fact. I don’t have to look for footfalls. People are now coming from the Gulf, Germany, Russia and Australia. There are strong and unbroken traditions of Ayurveda in Kerala. There are Ayurvedic hospitals, resorts and spas owned by locals. That is why there is a corpus of doctors and medicine-makers, a fact that sustains Ayurveda tourism in the state,” he said.

S. Harikishore, director-tourism, said Ayurveda’s potential in providing relaxation, rejuvenation and treatment is well-known. “We are hopeful that our efforts would give a fillip to monsoon tourism with Ayurveda as its key driver,” he added.