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Railways' initiative

The Indian Railways had offered `Rail Holidays' as a concept to tour operators a couple of years ago. Against a deposit and terms and conditions a large allocation of seats were offered on certain trains. Thomas Cook India and Kesari Tours from Mumbai were the first on the bandwagon.

Rail Holidays was projected as an inexpensive way to travel and the company got into it in a big way though not successfully. In fact, the company expected this alone to contribute to a third of domestic revenues. Kesari Tours has, however, had a better experience and met with some success.

"For rail holidays as a concept to succeed, the Government has to become more liberalised. New concepts such as flexible pricing have to come in as, at present, the packages require the entire risks to be borne by the tour operators. All organised players who were earlier bullish about this have pulled back because there are no re-imbursements on block booked tickets.

There was no doubt a whiff of freshness but the Government's inflexible attitude hampered its growth," said, Sunil Gupta, Head, Leisure, Thomas Cook India.

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