Tourism News

KERALA TOURISM NEWSLETTER

Kerala’s Nature, Culture and Cuisine to get a Global Audience

The fabled nature, culture and cuisine of ‘God’s Own Country’ is all set to receive a global audience in the New Year with two of the biggest television channels in the world gearing up to host shows dedicated to the State.

The crews of BBC World from the United Kingdom and NTV Broadcasting Company of Russia are setting up the broadcast of their shows at the invitation of Kerala Tourism. The shows will be beamed around the world informing an international audience about the abundant nature of the State as well as its culture and culinary delights.

Both the shows, named The Travel Show on the BBC World and Let’s go, Let’s eat on NTV covers different parts of Kerala as part of the familiarization (FAM) trips organised by Kerala Tourism. NTV is the largest private TV company in Russia.

“Kerala Tourism regularly organises FAM trips for renowned travel writers, journalists, television crews and tour operators. As the New Year begins, we are privileged to host shows for two of the most popular channels abroad,” said Mr. A. P. Anilkumar, Minister for Tourism, Kerala.

BBC’s travel programme is telecast globally to 77 million viewers.  The programme with its Presenter Mr. Henry Golding will be showcasing the State’s backwaters, home stays, village life experience, and culture captured in Alappuzha and Kochi.

In order to highlight Responsible Tourism (RT), shell collection in Alappuzha will be featured. They also spent some time in Kochi to study the nuances of Kathakali make-up.

The BBC team is arriving in Kerala at the personal invitation of Mr. G. Kamala Vardhana Rao, Secretary, Kerala Tourism, during his visit last year to London, where he had met with members of the British Parliament and discussed tourism promotion and investments in Kerala’s tourism sector. He had also visited the BBC office in London.

“We are extremely happy that they have accepted our invitation. I see this as a golden opportunity to market our State internationally. Considering the increasing numbers of Russian visitors to our State, NTV has decided to explore our varied culinary practices for the benefit of their citizens,” Mr. Rao said.

With an audience of over 3 million, NTV covers around 99.2% of the Russian population and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. The team of NTV’s new culinary and ethnographic project covers places like Kochi – mainly the Jew Street in Fort Kochi, Responsible Tourism activities in Kumarakom and tourist destinations like Varkala and Thiruvananthapuram. 

The NTV team will be headed by the producer and director of the show, Mr. Abramov Alexander with the presenter Mr. John Warren. Others in the team include scriptwriter Ms. Yuzefova Violetta and cameramen Mr. Markin Artem and Mr. Pan Lev.