The Royal Odyssey
Indian trains are great, and are good value, You can take trains everywhere, going overnight to save on hotel fare. The problem with Indian railways is that it is nearly impossible to get reservations at short notice. Most trains have a quota for tourists but you may have problems using this quota at stations in small cities. These quotas generate revenue for ticket clerks and on-train ticket inspectors! Be prepared to fight, bribe, and bully your way onto trains! The information booth at train stations can be totally useless; you may be given either the wrong or incomplete info. If you are really short on money travel second class by train. Its hard, dirty, and exhilarating.
Impressions such as these, gleaned from a travel guide to India on the Net, are hardly likely to encourage even the most determined traveller to India. But the Indian Railways is hoping it has an answer to their problems luxury trains.
Even for a budget tourist, there are hard-nosed cost benefits to be derived by taking these trains. On an average, tourists spend nearly 67 per cent of their budget on accommodation, internal travel and foods and beverages. On these trains they are charged a lumpsum amount for the entire package at anything between $150 to $400 a day. Not surprisingly, almost 95 per cent of the travelers on these opulent wheels are inbound tourists.
As the 15-year-old Palace on Wheels, promoted by the Railways and Rajasthans tourism department, has shown, there is money to be made in such ventures. Small wonder, then, that a handful of private operators have decided to jump on the luxury train wagon. So far Sterling Holiday Resorts, Patel Group and East West Airlines have signed contracts with the Railways to roll on royal wheels into uncharted territory.
The main attraction for new entrants is that the total earnings will be in foreign exchange tax free. And in terms of operations, the luxury trains are but an extension of their businesses for which marketing networks are already in place. With the railways taking care of running the trains, investors have low fixed capital costs and virtually no investment in rolling stock or building rail links.
This not only marks the entry of private sector into the rail luxury travel business but also the entry of several new circuits on the map. Sterling Resorts which has called its package the Royal Indian will make its debut in the southern circuit sometime next year. It plans to operate a tourist train covering Bangalore, Mysore, Chennai, Kodaikanal, Kanyakumari, Trivandrum, Cochin and Ooty, a 2,118 km ride.
Sterling would also be running the Royal Indian (Northern) between Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, Gwalior, Khajuraho, Varanasi and Lucknow.
Another new circuit to come on the luxury train map is the western region. The Patel Group of Secunderabad plans to run a tourist train between Mumbai, Aurangabad, Nanded, Secunderabad, Hyderabad and Pune. The group also has a contract for a tourist train on the southern circuit which is similar to the Sterling contract.
East West Airlines has bagged a contract for managing a tourist train on the 3,312-km coastal circuit covering Goa, Mangalore, Mysore, Hospet and Bangalore.
All these joint ventures may, however, take a couple of years to roll on. Till then, the Palace on Wheels and the one-year-old Royal Orient, a joint venture with Gujarat tourism, will continue to dominate the luxury rails.
This year, by the end of September, almost half the bookings for Palace On Wheels, a seven-day trip through the forts and palaces of Rajasthan, were complete in advance and it is expected to go up to 85 to 90 per cent, says Pramod Sharma, manager, of the Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation (RTDC).
Sharma is upbeat about POW because many of its earlier problems have been sorted out now. POWs biggest drawback was that it operated on narrow-gauge which, among other things, limited the number of coaches that could be attached to it. Work on gauge conversion started in 1991 and was completed in 1994. Once this happened, new coaches were added at a cost of Rs 20 crore.
In 1993-94, 2,032 passengers boarded POW. By1994-95, the number had dropped to 1,292 passengers. Last year 1,500 took the train. But gauge conversion has partly helped. Even before the start of the season, POW had 1,600 confirmed bookings. This is expected to bring in an estimated earnings of Rs 12 crore for the venture partners. Till 1994-95, POW earned Rs 10.80 crore for RTDC and Rs 23.91 for the Indian Railways.
Hoping to duplicate the success of the Palace on Wheels, Gujarat too introduced the Royal Orient taking over the old Palace on Wheels and replaced the Rajasthani interiors with an ethnic Gujarati ambience. The Royal Orient, with its 13 coaches and saloons, travels to both Rajasthan and Gujarat offering a pilgrimage and pleasure trip. The idea is to popularise Gujarat as an alternative destination. Apart from visitors from US, Europe and South Africa, Pathy says, the TCGL is also targeting the pilgrim traveler, especially Gujarati NRIs.
The Royal Orient is a joint venture between the Tourism Corporation of Gujarat (TGCL) and the Indian Railways. The Delhi-to-Delhi train weaves its way to Chittaurgarh, Udaipur, Palitana, Somnath, Ahmedpur-Mandvi, Diu, Junagadh-Sasan Gir, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. According to Soman S Pathy, manager, TGCL, the response to the year-old Royal Orient has so far been good.
The Royal Orient is hoping to cash in on an unusual combination of places, forts, beaches, sanctuaries and temple cities for which passengers can travel three, five or eight days. We also sell Rajasthan along with Gujarat, Pathy adds.
Will the two trains be competing with each other?.No, says Pathy, Our clientele is different. POWs Sharma says he does not foresee any competition for the desert queen in the next few years. The challenge begins later.