Part of a major marketing strategy

The early history of tourism is the story of development of the mobility of man. Both in the pre-historic era and later times, man searched for things he wanted and traveled widely for food, shelter or just for curiosity. Adam and Eve could be called the â??first touristsâ??. In due course of time, large-scale movements were also caused by changes in climate, dwindling food supplies or hostile invaders. The Aryans left their homes in Central Asia due to climatic change leading to dwindling food supplies.

Due to the absence of roads and other transportation facilities, traveling was rather hard and this slowly led to the development of land routes, and also the discovery of easily accessible river and sea navigation lines. Understandably, traveling in the distant past was not a thing of pleasure as in modern times. Trade and commerce was however, the strongest force in the ancient past, and it inspired people to travel to distant lands in search of fortunes and other natural resources. Gradually, the opening up of new trade routes gave a big boost to travel and also heralded the emergence of the multi-billion dollar travel and tourism industry that we see now.

Today, the bulk of the tourist traffic is generated by trade and commercial links. However, the persons who traveled for the love of travel and wonder lust or for increasing their knowledge by visiting other places and countries were a class apart. They were the â??true touristsâ?? and that is how tourism, as it is understood in modern times, was born.

In Kerala packages directed at particular tourist segments helped a lot to promote the places of tourist interest among the globe trotters. Today the beaches of Kerala and the other natural wonders have found a prominent place in the world tourism map. Perhaps no other tourist center in the whole of south India could attract so many tourists from outside the country and inspire them to explore more. Tourists that have visited this place once used to come back again and again to enjoy the natural scenery.