On a day when snakeboats made a splash at the Champakulam Moolam boat race at Kuttanad, heralding the beginning of the annual boat race season in the State, Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world, released a promotional poster connecting the two events on Monday.
Organisers of the grass-court event, which got under way at Wimbledon in London on Monday, issued the poster featuring tennis stars such as Ons Jabeur, Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and others rowing boats on Kerala backwaters on top social media sites to entice tennis fans. The poster is accompanied by an emoji of a handshake between Kerala and London and a message “Ready for the annual boat race! Who will be lifting The 2023 Wimbledon Championships?” The poster has garnered a lot of attention on social media platforms. It is expected to increase Kerala tourism’s appeal globally.
“Really exciting to see Kerala’s snakeboat race being featured by Wimbledon as an official poster,” Kerala Tourism Minister P.A. Mohamed Riyas said.
The snakeboat race is prominently featured by Kerala Tourism in international travel and tourism trade fairs and roadshows. It was only a few ago back that Chelsea FC made a virtual tour of the backwaters of Alappuzha, praising the beauty of the land. The Tourism Minister had then invited the ‘Blues’ for a ‘real tour’ of the State.
