kochi though tourism may be the backbone of the state generating revenues of around 800 million but the lack of vision has led to poor infrastructural facilities bad roads poor waste management and frequent hartals are an inconvenience to tourists said union minister for food and civil supplies kv thomas he was speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the kerala travel mart 2012 on thursday after speaking about the positive aspects of kerala tourism in english the central minister switched to malayalam and drew the attention of the locals to the problems that exist in the state it took me 4 hours to travel from mata amritanandamayi math to kochi by road on wednesday i needed only four hours to travel from hyderabad to bangalore by road he said ktm 2012 president riaz ahmed said to improve tourism there has to be constant development and maintenance of roads is a must tourism department is also developing ecofriendly rural tourism packages in kumarakom wayanad kovalam and muziris heritage circuit emphasising on quality tourism secretary suman billa said we want tourists who will stay here for a longer period to meet this we will have to develop activities revolving around ayurveda and adventure tourism we intend to launch sea planes by february 2012 which will be a big boost for tourism chief minister oommen chandy was absent due to ill health he was to give his inaugural speech through video conferencing but technical snags halted this move however the media release quoted his message environment is our treasure our culture and our investment we are bound to preserve it at any cost