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Via Bus Tours, part of the Bangalore-based travel operator Via Group, is betting big on the domestic pilgrimage tourism market, with plans to add 16 more multi-axle luxury Volvo buses to its existing fleet of four in the next two quarters to connect major cities and towns with pilgrimage centres.
The company will be procuring each of the buses at a cost of Rs 1.1 crore.
“In the next two to three years, we plan to have 1,000 such buses on the road, which will be a mix of company-owned and those operated by our business partners, the travel agents,” Mr John Kuruvilla, Chief Marketing Officer of Via, told presspersons here on Thursday.
The company, which had earlier raised $15 million from Sequoia Capital and Indi-US Ventures, would look at raising fresh funds to finance its expansion plans. “We are in the process of finalising our fund-raising plans,” he said.
The company today launched a daily Tirupati darshan service from Hyderabad to Tirupati, which includes a two-way journey in the luxury bus, snacks on board, hotel stay, breakfast and lunch and darshan for Rs 2,450 on weekdays and Rs 2,650 on weekends.
“There is a huge potential in this sector, with close to 50,000 people visiting Tirupati every day. Our surveys have shown that 40 buses arrive at the temple town every day from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and another 30 from Tamil Nadu,” Mr Kuruvilla said.
It will be launching its services to Shirdi from January, to be followed by services to destinations such as Amritsar and Ajmer.
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