Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 29 (IANS): Two roadshows conducted in Australia to promote tourism to Kerala will hopefully translate into business, officials said Saturday.

"We hope that the efforts will be translated into business in the coming times as the trade members from Kerala and Australia were engaged in fruitful discussions," said Kerala Tourism Secretary T.K. Manoj Kumar who led the delegation to Australia early this week.

Seventy-five tour operators participated Oct 24 in Sydney while the next day at Melbourne, 60 of them turned up, according to a press release by Kerala Tourism.

This is after a gap of three years that Kerala Tourism officials went on a promotion drive of Kerala Tourism, Down Under.

"This is part of a new drive by the state to approach the emerging markets with concrete short and long-term strategies and tap the potentials to the maximum," said Kerala Tourism Director Rani George.

Kerala Tourism also announced that they would participate at the World Travel Mart scheduled to be held in London from Nov 7 to 10, besides another delegation from the state would take part in a series of workshops planned in Scandinavian countries.

Australia is an emerging market for Kerala with 36,854 arrivals in 2010, making it the fifth biggest market.

The current strategy of the state tourism department, especially in the face of economic crisis in Europe and US, is to focus on the emerging markets like Australia and Scandinavia by pitching its unique tourism products.