Grounded UK fighter jet gives Kerala Tourism a viral lift

After cashing in on the popularity of Hollywood stars Tom Holland and Zendaya, co-stars of Spider Man movies, Kerala Tourism is now making headlines, thanks to the popularity of an F-35B fighter jet of the Royal Air Force (RAF) of the United Kingdom.

The fighter jet that made an emergency landing at the Thiruvananthapuram international airport in Kerala on the night of June 14 remains grounded, generating much hype and speculation on online platforms.

Capitalising on the intense media interest, a social media post shared by Kerala Tourism on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday (July 2, 2025) says: ‘Kerala is a destination that you will never want to leave,’ against the background of a picture of the grounded F-35B jet.

Flood of trolls

Netizens were quick to lap it up with a flood of trolls on social media platforms. One post said: ‘The grounded jet now refuses to start without coconut oil.’

Another post advises the US-based Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the F-35B, one of the most advanced fighter jets in service globally for key NATO allies, to “never let your jets get near Kerala.” The post was apparently mentioning the damage happened to the reputation of the globally acclaimed jet manufacturer in the US.

This is not the first time that Kerala Tourism has leveraged the popularity of headline-grabbing incidents or people for brand building.

In 2023, a day after the celebrated Hollywood pair Zendaya and Tom Holland paid a trip to Mumbai to attend the grand launch of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, their first trip together to the country, their fans in Kerala were left baffled when a photo of the couple enjoying a trip in Munnar, a popular hill destination in South India, was posted by Kerala Tourism on its social media platform.

In the picture, Tom Holland and Zendaya were seen holding hands on a picturesque tea plantation, while Kerala Tourism added the caption “Guess who we spotted far away from home?” with the photograph and also added hashtags #FarAwayHome, #Munnar and #KeralaTourism. However, netizens were quick to spot that the Hollywood stars did not visit Munnar, as suggested by the tweet, but the photo was from Boston in the USA, taken a year ago.

According to Kerala Tourism statistics, the UK and the US consistently rank as the top two countries for foreign tourist arrivals in Kerala. Specifically, the U.K. is the biggest market for Kerala Tourism, with British tourists accounting for 14.55% of the total foreign tourists who visited Kerala in 2024, followed by the US with 13.33%. Of the around 7.38 lakh foreign tourist visits in Kerala in 2024, 2.05 lakh were from these two countries.