Economic Times Chennai; Date:2007 Oct 17; Section:Southern Compass; Page Number 8
*Kerala plans grand shopping festival in December* Our Bureau KOCHI/THIRUVANANTHAPURAM FOR COMPULSIVE shoppers in Kerala, December-January is generally the time to pack bags and fly out to Dubai to keep their annual appointment with the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF). This year, however, it is going to be different. Taking a leaf out of the marketing innovations of the desert destination, Dubai, Kerala is launching its own brand of shopping festival, the Grand Kerala Shopping Festival. The festival will be organised in the state from December 1, 2007 to January 15, 2008, and if all goes well instead of Keralites shopping in Dubai, there could be a large number of NRIs and tourists from across the world shopping in the state, for a change. The Grand Kerala Shopping Festival is projected to bring together nearly 1 lakh trading establishments in the state. The commercial capital, Ernakulam, itself is expected to ensure participation of at least 12,000 traders. The focus of the festival will be on products like consumer durables, gold jewellery and lifestyle products, among others. And adding more spice to the shopping caravan will be hotels, restaurants, resorts and ayurvedic spas. The festival will showcase products from the state's traditional industry sectors like coir, cashew, handicrafts, handloom and spice products and will coincide with the peak season of the state's tourism sector. In fact, the festival's target consumers are the tourists and NRIs who visit the state during this period, besides the local buyers. GKSF is being jointly organised by the tourism department, the industries department, the local self goverment department, and the finance and taxes departments and it offers dollies for both participating units and shoppers. While the trading establishments joining the festival can look forward to incentives, the shoppers can look forward to surprise gifts, say authorities. Throughout the course of the festival there will be *weekly lucky dips *to pick a winner from among the shoppers. The winner can look forward to prizes like holiday packages, cars and consumer durables among other offerings. Besides these, purchases worth Rs 1,000 would make shoppers eligible for *scratch cards with surprise gifts*. The shopping festival is expected to also provide a timely boost to the fortunes of the states tourism industry. In recent times, Kerala's tourism industry has been hit by causes as diverse as the demolition of resorts in Munnar to the spread of chikungunya. The tourism sector in Kerala,which attracts roughly 4 lakh international tourists annually, is targeting an ambitious Rs 10,000 crore in revenues this fiscal. http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/ET/navigator.asp?Daily=ETCH&login=default --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
