Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 4 (IANS): The Kerala government on Wednesday announced the launch of a heli-tourism policy.

The decision was cleared at the weekly cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Consequent to this new policy, tourist spots across the state will be connected by a helicopter network making them easily accessible for visiting tourists.

Through this policy, the construction of basic infrastructure for helicopters will be set up by constructing heli ports, stations, and helipads.

The government expects that with a clear-cut policy now on the use of helicopters in tourism, there is going to be renewed interest from the helicopter operators to commence operations linking the numerous tourism spots.

Over the years, tourism continues to be the biggest money-spinning industry in Kerala and with the heli policy now ready, it is visualised to attract substantial private investment to the state.

Incidentally in the past following the lack of such a policy, a few big-time ayurveda operators had to shelve their mega projects as they had planned to set up exquisite resorts offering ayurveda packages at certain serene locations.

Over the years, the Kerala Tourism Department has been fine-tuning their much in-demand products like houseboats, caravan tourism, promoting adventure destinations and all the time there were demands of having a well-planned policy for operations of helicopters.

Last year, Kerala witnessed a record surge in the number of domestic tourists with as many as 2.1 crore people visiting the state, while the number of international travellers was 6.49 lakh, according to Kerala Tourism Board data.

The Kerala government is expecting to host 2.2 crore domestic and 8 lakh international travellers this financial year.

The tourism industry like elsewhere badly got affected during the Covid period and it’s now that things are looking bright with Tourism Minister P.A. Mohammed Riyas leading from the front by bringing out innovative policies.