Discover Karnataka on the wheels

Discover Karnataka on the wheels
By S Lalitha,DH News Service,Bangalore:
The packages are going to be under five segments temple; heritage; recreation or leisure; eco & adventure tourism and meetings, incentives, conventions & expositions (MICE).

A pleasure trip with all the travel hassles taken care of! What a cool proposition. This is what the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC), South Western Region, has in mind for potential tourists with its host of packages to be launched as a New Year gift to inbound tourists in general and the people of Karnataka in particular.

The packages are going to be under five segments — temple; heritage; recreation or leisure; eco & adventure tourism and meetings, incentives, conventions & expositions (MICE). A few of these packages will begin by early January, while all of them would be in place by mid-2008, according to IRCTC Chief Regional Manager (CRM) S Gagarin.

The packages, all of them originating from Bangalore to begin with, will ensure that the tourist is literally picked up and dropped at his or her doorstep with food, boarding, sightseeing and everything else pertaining to the trip being taken care of by IRCTC.

“Tourist facilitation offices will be set up at 20 of the 355 stations that come under South Western Railway. Each office will have a station officer,” Gagarin said.

IRCTC can get the Railways to earmark 10 per cent of sleeper class and 15 per cent of AC class tickets for the tourism packages, he added. The most alluring of the packages appears to be the Eco and Adventure tourism one. IRCTC's maiden foray in this segment is set to receive a major boost when the proposed tie-up with Jungle Lodges and Resorts (JLR), a government concern, gets operational. Different packages will be organised to cover the exotic locales of Kabini, B R Hills, Bandipur, Doddamakali, Karwar, Bannerghatta and Kodagu district among other places.

The recreation segment will comprise the Beach or Sun ‘n’ Sand package which has two routes, one to Goa and another to Pondicherry. “A cost-effective and convenient route to reach Goa is planned through the three-night and two-day package,” Gagarin said. This excludes the journey time.

One can leave Bangalore (boarding at Yeshwantpur) on Friday night and spend the weekend as well as Monday in Goa and return the same night to touch Bangalore on Tuesday morning. The Pondicherry package will be launched later. IRCTC is presently operating two packages under this segment to Kerala.

The MICE package is targeted at corporates and enables them to combine business with pleasure.
Plans for the next financial year include a “Bharat Darshan” train. The North, South and West zones of IRCTC have already introduced this venture. “It gives a feel of real India with a trip to temples, villages and nature spots,” the CRM said. Education and scientific trips for students are also in the offing.


ONE STATE, MANY TOUR SPOTS

Eco & Adventure: Doddamakali; Bannerghatta; Bandipur; Kabini; Kali; K Gudi; Bheemeshwari; Ganesh Gudi and Madikeri
Temples: Shirdi; Kukke Subramanya; Dharmasthala-Sringeri-Horanadu and M’lore-Udupi-Kollur.
Heritage: Hampi and Belur-Halebid-Shravanabelagola
Recreation: Goa and Pondicherry
Corporates: Places of their choice for meetings, incentives, conventions & expositions