Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his team of ministers made a total of over 150 trips to 27 countries in the last four years, according to the RTI information furnished by the General Administration (Protocol) department. The number of trips betters those of Pinarayi Vijayan's previous cabinet by a fairly good margin. 

Between 2016 and 2021, the Chief Minister and ministers toured foreign countries 87 times, according to the assembly figures compiled during this period. In 2020-21, trips could not materialise due to the pandemic-induced lockdown. 

In the present tenure, only 13% of foreign tours were for official purposes and 42% trips were conducted to participate in events, analysis of trip data shows. Pinarayi Vijayan has the highest number of foreign trips; 16, followed by Minister for PWD and Tourism, P A Mohammad Riyas; 15 trips.

Riyas's tours were mostly for attending trade fairs and travel marts, and five trips were for private purposes to Indonesia, Singapore, and the UAE. If CM's latest trips to Qatar and Bahrain are included, the total will reach 18. 

The Ministers made 28 private trips during this period, mostly by Mohammad Riyas, followed by K B Ganesh Kumar, who had flown to Italy, the UAE, Thailand and Indonesia. As many as 64 trips were for events with Minister for Water Resources Roshy Augustine leading with 12 trips followed by Minister for Agriculture P Prasad who toured foreign countries 10 times to attend events. The events include award functions, conventions, festival celebrations, family gatherings, conference of associations etc. 

Besides Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Minister for Sports, Waqf and Hajj pilgrimage V Abdurahiman was given sanction for a foreign trip three times to avail treatment at Johns Hopkins Outpatient Centre, New York. 

The Middle East countries were the most visited places by the Kerala CM & Ministers; 64 trips of which 35 tours were for attending events. Europe is the next favoured destination for Kerala ministers—38 trips were made to European nations in the last four years. The majority of these trips were for attending events, and the remaining were categorised as official trips. 

The Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has repeatedly avoided answering questions on foreign trips in the legislative assembly sessions. Onmanorama sought information on the sanction orders issued by the GA(Protocol) for the foreign trips. 

The information on countries visited, purpose of visit and number of trips has been provided with an addendum which reads, " This authority is not sure whether the ministers have performed all the visits sanctioned".

 Publicly available records show that in March 2025, Industries Minister P Rajeev and his team were denied permission by the centre to attend an annual conference in Washington to give a speech on 'Year of enterprises' in the state.

 In 2024, the centre did not grant permission to the Health Minister Veena George to travel to Kuwait following the fire tragedy. Recently in May, she didn't get the clearance to speak at John Hopkins University in the USA.

 Onmanorama also sought information from the Union Ministry of External Affairs regarding instances where sanction was not given to Kerala ministers for foreign trips and reasons cited for denial. Rajiv Saxena, Under Secretary, Chief Public Information Officer, MEA, however skirted the question and said that reply can be given only upon providing specific details of each visit.  

Onmanorama also received information from the General Administration (Accounts) on the expenditure related with the foreign journeys by Pinarayi Vijayan and ministers between 2021 and 2025. An amount of  ₹1.05 crore was reimbursed as flight ticket charges.