Kerala’s ayurvedic industry believes that its counterparts in Sri Lanka are becoming a major threat to its dominance in the industry, a media report said.
Kerala’s ayurvedic industry challenged by Sri Lanka
“Sri Lanka has slowly come up as a threat to our market,” Sanjeev Kurup V., Secretary of the influential Kerala Travel Mart Society who also runs the Paithrukam Hospitality Group has told Indian media.
“I was in Sri Lanka only last week, and I estimate they have taken away 30-40 percent of our business,” Kurup has told IANS.
According to him, weakness of Sri Lanka’s rupee compared to the Indian rupee and also the end of the three decade old conflict in the Island has helped the country’s Ayurvedic industry.
According to him, another reason for the growth is that in Sri Lanka many clinics allow men to provide ayurvedic massage to women.
“Well, ladies from countries like Germany, even if they are 45 years of age or more, are pretty strong physically, and they somehow don’t seem happy with our women,” he has said
However, Indian tourism officials believe that Sri Lanka, even though making grounds in the Ayurveda industry, it will not be at the expense of Kerala’s industry.
“Our ayurveda is so unique. And there is enough space in ayurveda business for more players to get in”, Suman Billa, Secretary in Kerala Tourism, has told the IANS.
According to the media report, ayurveda plays a key role in attracting close to one million foreign and over one crore domestic tourists every year to Kerala.
Almost 70 percent of the foreigners and 30-40 percent of Indian tourists come to Kerala for ayurvedic treatment and the average stay of a foreigner in Kerala is 18 days – one of the highest in the world.
source: http://www.news360.lk / News360.lk / Home> Others> Health / April 29th, 2013
