Kochi, Sep. 29: A pioneering app for Kerala Travel Mart 2024 smoothened proceedings radically at the just-concluded conclave in the city, enabling quick tabulation of details around the array of paperless buyer-seller meets and highlighting the spirit of sustainable tourism.
Available on iOS and Android, the easy-to-operate mobile app with nine tabs primarily facilitated the stakeholders in the travel industry to fix their meetings and conduct them on schedule during the three days ending September 29. At the end of the appointments – scheduled or otherwise – the parties customarily got a QR-code scan done, registering their participation in each B2B meet.
While ‘My Meetings’ is the pivotal tab on the app, the other eight work as supplementary providers of information about the mart that featured 347 stalls under eight segments, mirroring a wide range of resources and activities associated with the state’s travel and hospitality industry.
The B2B meets, alone, were for the buyers and sellers of the 12th edition of the mart. Otherwise, anyone can access the rest of the details about the meet by downloading the app, revealed Rajkumar K, CEO of KTM Society which organizes the biennial event. “Obviously, only the registered buyers and sellers can get into the ‘meetings’ segment by opening it after filling in an OTP,” he said about the app, which Tourism Minister Shri Mohamed Riyas had formally launched at Thiruvananthapuram a fortnight ago.
The app gives the buyers and sellers an option to rate their meets. The feedback also carries a slot called ‘Raise Disputes’ to express grievance, if any. “True, you may exchange cards and jot down notes using a pen. Yet the mart saved massive use of paper-sheets. Imagine their number when each party will use one set of the form for every meeting they conduct. A seller will have 70 to perhaps even 100 meets, including the unscheduled ones, on a given day,” the CEO pointed out, hailing the app that was realized by an eight-member team of developers after four months of work.
The other tabs on the app, which provides continued access to the public, are ‘Exhibitors’, ‘Programmes’, ‘Floor Plan’, ‘Quick Help’, ‘Venue’, ‘Activities’, ‘KTM’ and ‘Moments’. The app kept updating during the three days of the buyer-seller meet, further raising its efficiency, pointed out Ranju Joseph, Chairman of the IT Committee of KTM 2024.
The idea of the app is an advancement over a web-based process KTM Society mulled over in the previous edition in 2022, organisers said. In app, as Joseph points out, internet connectivity is not necessary for access. “It’s another matter we ensured meticulous WiFi across the venue,” he adds about the service at the Sagara-Samudrika Convention Centre in Willingdon Island of west Kochi.
The delegates said the app enhanced their KTM experience. Kerala Kalamandalam Deemed-to-be-University, for instance, said its stall at the venue received “several more” appointments above the already-booked 160 slots for B2B meets. “When the schedule of B2Bs of 10 minutes duration each makes us completely engaged, we got many enquiries from an impressive number of buyers, including domestic,” informed P. Rajeshkumar, Registrar of the performing-arts institution in Thrissur district.
Going paperless was particularly vital for KTM-2024, which had its buyers totalling 2,839, including 808 from abroad. With its focus on Kerala as a destination for weddings and cruises, the message of green protocol at the mart has further enhanced the international image of the state on the world tourism map, organisers said.
