Indian Railways

[Naresh]

<b>Get on track to be Viceroy of India</b>

<b>MUMBAI : India’s luxury train travel industry is getting on to the fast track. The latest addition — Viceroy of India — not only marks the maiden entry of a foreign player but also comes on the back of an immense private interest in the sector, hitherto dominated by Indian Railways.</b>

When the Viceroy of India train, run by the Britain-based GW Travel, began its maiden journey from Mumbai to Darjeeling earlier this month, it was the first luxury train to run right across the subcontinent, from the western end to the eastern fringes. The other well-known luxury train, the Palace on Wheels, only runs on the Rajasthan-Delhi route.

<b>For feeling like a viceroy you will have to fork out like a maharaja. A fifteen-day tour can cost you anywhere between £ 5,695 and £ 13,195, depending upon the class you opt for. Don’t take out your calculators, we will make it easy for you — in Indian currency it will make your purse lighter by Rs 4.96 lakh to Rs 11.5 lakh.</b>

The potential of luxury tourism travel prompted Cox&Kings to tie up with GW Travel and take care of the logistics of Viceroy of India. Cox&Kings will also market the travel in Europe and the US, to attract potential tourists.

The Viceroy of India train has been chartered by GW Travel from Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation and the Railways provides the drivers. “This is an inaugural trip, but interest in the journey from potential passengers from around the world has been so great that the initial journeys for the next year have already sold out and we are negotiating more,” said GW Travel MD Tim Littler.

GW Travel has been running luxury trains in Russia and China and is known for Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express that covers 10,000 km. It plans to increase the number of trains in India to six by next year. Also among GW Travel’s list is a luxury train in Lhasa, Tibet, on what will be the highest railway track in the world.

According to Arup Sen, executive director at Cox&Kings, “The Palace on Wheels travels within north India whereas the Deccan Odyssey covers Maharashtra and Goa. There are many regions that still remain unexplored like southern and eastern India.” Other luxury carriers such as Fairy Queen, Heritage on Wheels and The Royal Orient cater to the Delhi-Rajasthan sector only.

Companies like GW Travel are banking on an exponential increase in tourists’ traffic. “Out of the 3.9m tourists who came to India last year, only 3,735 travelled by luxury trains,” said Mr Sen. Only 1% of the tourists coming to India travelled by luxury trains, which is much lower than the world average of 6%. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, out of the almost 1.5bn global tourists last year, 10.2m travelled by luxury trains.

Encouraged by the growing popularity, the Railways has got 10 proposals from private players to operate luxury trains. “Our rail network is excellent. Luxury train service is the highest revenue earning service for the railways so it gets priority in allotment of slots. This is an untapped potential,” said Mr Sen.

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