Special Rail Passes For Foreign Tourists

The railway ministry has offered a 15 per cent commission to be paid to Eurotrain International for selling Explorer passes.

The pass will ensure unlimited train travel facilities within India to foreign tourists.

Under the scheme, recently finalised by the ministry, the tourists can exchange the Explorer passes for Indrail passes once they come to India.

The Indrail pass also provides unlimited rail travel facility in the country. But this pass is sold to foreigners in India while the Explorer pass will be sold abroad.

The Explorer pass scheme will shortly become operational after the procedural modalities are finalised, sources said.

 

Eurotrain International, a rail organisation which runs and organises rail travel facilities in Europe, will be responsible for printing the explorer passes and selling them through their agents at their own cost.

It will also undertake worldwide marketing of the product besides being responsible for all aspects of accounting and payment of the collected fares of the sold tickets.

One of the purposes of the world-wide marketing strategy is to popularise the concept of luxury train travel facilities in India.

Besides Palace on Wheels which is currently available, the Indian Railways also plan to introduce two other luxury trains covering certain new tourist destinations.

These two luxury trains are being introduced in North and South India in collaboration with the British company which runs the famous Royal Scoth luxury train travel facility.

The Indian Railways has also begun negotiations with several 5-star hotel chains in the country to sell tickets on the luxury trains. "

"The initial response from the 5-star hotels is very encouraging. It allows the hotel industry to link the sale of rail tickets with room bookings and developing tourist destinations in places which are not well developed so far", a Rail Bhavan source said.

An interesting part of the programme for luxury train is to offer a short patch of the journey on steam engine-run passenger rakes, in order to evoke the romance of old-time travel.

But the railways are facing resistance from forest departments in several states against the idea of extending rail routes close to forest areas like the Corbert Park in Uttar Pradesh.