The Hindu Business Line : IRCTC plans budget tours from Chennai, Mumbai

Kolkata, Jan. 12 India Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) will shortly launch ‘Bharat Darshan’ tour programmes for budget travellers from Chennai and Mumbai. The details are being worked out.

“These will replace similar tour programmes earlier operated from these two cities by private tour operators,” Mr Vivek Srivastava, Chief General Manager of IRCTC, East, told newspersons here on Monday. “This time the tours will be operated by IRCTC departmentally.”

IRCTC has been running Bharat Darshan tour programmes for budget travellers from the East (Howrah station) since October last year. So far, three tours have been organised — two to North India and one to Rajasthan. The fourth one, to South India, will start on January 15 to Visakhapatnam, Pondicherry, Madurai, Rameswaram, Kanyakumari, Bangalore, Mysore and Chennai.

‘Just breaking even’

“It will be rash to claim that the response so far has been as good as anticipated,” Mr Srivastava observed. “At 60 per cent occupancy, we’re just breaking even.”

Despite the tours being very “reasonable cost-wise” — only Rs 500/person/day covering all expenses, rail fare, meals, tea and sightseeing — the response had not been up to the mark, presumably because not many people knew about it . “Since we charge modestly for the tours, we cannot spend heavily on publicity and advertisements,” he added.

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