Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Feb 16, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Feb 16, 2002 |
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Corporate
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Announcements Logistics - Shipping Taj plans Kochi-Kavaratti luxury yacht service N.K. Kurup
MUMBAI, Feb. 15 IN a bid to make the best out of the God's Own Country, Indian Hotels Company Ltd, which owns the Taj Group of hotels, proposes to start a luxury yacht service between Kerala and Lakshadweep. The company had sought permission from the Directorate-General of Shipping for the service, an informed source said. The "application is being examined,'' said an official at the DGS's office. The Taj group has acquired two yachts built abroad for starting the service. The vessel requires "sea-worthiness'' and other clearance from the Director-General of Shipping. The service, initially, will be offered to Taj tourists. Targeted mainly at high net worth tourists, the luxury service is expected to get good response particularly from foreign travellers, said an official with Taj group. The yacht will take about eight hours from Kochi to Kavaratti. The advantage is that tourists can stay on board overnight and need not hire hotel accommodation at Lakshadweep. The three-bed room yacht has capacity for six people to `live-in'. The fare is yet to be worked out. "In any case, it will be part of a package which will work out economical for tourists who would want to visit both Kochi and Lakshadweep'', said the official. "In fact, this is an additional in-house value-added product for our guests. In Kerala, houseboat facility has already become a major value-added product. The yacht service is an extension of this,'' the official said. The service will be run by Oriental Hotels, a subsidiary of Indian Hotels Company. Currently, the sea link between Kerala and Lakshadweep, is a passenger shipping service run by Shipping Corporation of India, which takes 24 hours to reach the island destination from Kochi. According to tour operators, despite the general economic slowdown, tourist traffic to Kerala is growing. Almost all hotels in Kerala have full occupancy rate. Recently, Konkan Railway, jointly with the State Tourism Department and a private tour operator, has started a special service exclusively for tourists to Kerala from Mumbai. A similar drive from both the Government and private agencies was expected to boost tourist flow to the state, said an official. Taj Group has six hotels in Kerala. The group proposes to have two more hotels - one at Munnar and the other near Kasargode in the northern part of the State. One of the two yachts is already being operated in Goa for short trips around the coast.
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