Grand Kerala Shopping Festival

Grand Kerala Shopping Festival Road Show receives good response in Mumbai

by Priya Jadhav 

7  Dec, 2012

 

Maharashtra, a key domestic market for Kerala tourism, will have a win-win situation by participating in the forthcoming Grand Kerala Shopping 

Festival(GKSF), the biggest event of the kind in Asia, according to a senior official here today.

“Maharashtra and Gujarat are two important markets for Kerala. Now with Maharashtra taking part in the Global Village which is a key attraction of the mega event, theState and the business establishments from here can tap the Kerala market during this peak tourism and pilgrim season, while Kerala is looking for an increase in the inflow of tourists from the State,’’ GKSF State Coordinator Shri V Vijayan said.

He was interacting with the media here after the South Indian Bank-GKSF road show that evoked good response from the local residents and businessmen, apart from expatriate Keralites who are becoming the brand ambassadors for Kerala.

“Last year, we had over one lakh visitors from the region. This year, we are expecting at least 20% increase,” he said, while listing out the gains of the GKSF which offers 100% VAT refund to the visitors from outside the State, among other things.

The 48- day fiesta, looking to position Kerala as a world-class shopping destination, will get off on December 15. As part of the massive promotional activities, a national campaign was flagged off from Delhi on November 25. The campaign, which already covered the States of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, toured the key places in Mumbai today. Shopping is pitched as the latest addition to Kerala’s ever-growing list of niche tourism products ranging from backwaters to beaches, from hill stations to shrines, with the Kerala Tourism pitching the GKSF as the newest marketing tool.

The sixth edition of GKSF aims to transform entire Kerala into ‘one single shopping mall’ with high-voltage campaigns, promotions, tantalizing discounts, incentives from the government, and gifts and gold worth millions of rupees.

The annual fest, held under the aegis of the Government in collaboration with trade bodies, is the only one of its kind in the country to evolve a new marketing season at such a scale. Traditionally, Kerala has had only one marketing season — Onam. But over the past years, GKSF has emerged as its second biggest marketing season drawing in millions of customers and sending sales spiralling.

Apart from the high-voltage campaigns, promotions, tantalizing schemes involving merchant establishments from across the State, the fiesta will woo customers with a number of high-value gifts. Scratch and win prizes offering gold, GKSF merchandise, sponsored vouchers, daily prizes through SMS, and weekly draws will be hard for customers to resist.

Capping all these will be the mega draws with one kg of gold for one lucky winner and halfa kg of gold each for two others. A total prize of 101 kg is at stake for grabs by the lucky visitors. There will be daily prize of 1 gm gold, six weekly prizes of 10 sovereign to 10 winners each. Besides, sponsored high-value gifts worth Rs 10,00,000 for five people will add further glitter to the draws.

One of the highlights of GKSF Season 6 is a majestic Global Village which will be set up over 30 acres of land at Lulu Convention Centre premises in Bolgatty Island,off the coast of Kerala’s commercial capital Kochi.  The Global Village, which will be open to the public for 15 days from December 22, will be a miniature representation of our rich and diverse world. Participating nations will have their space of their own to showcase their cultures, traditions and crafts.

Countries such as Thailand, China, UAE and Malaysia have already confirmed the participation. The participating nations will have their space of their own to showcase their cultures, traditions and crafts. Also in the confirmed category are the states of West Bengal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.