TIRUCHY: The Tiruchy Travel Federation (TTF) plans to organise a travel expo here shortly to highlight ‘our tourism destinations’ to the travel and tour operators of Southeast Asian nations to help bring in more tourists to Tamil Nadu from that region.
Inaugurating a week -long ‘World Tourism Day’ celebrations organised by TTF here on Saturday night, its president V. Vasudevan underlined the need for domestic connectivity by both rail and air. Though Tiruchy is an international airport, the domestic connectivity ‘is poor’, which poses a major challenge in promoting domestic tourism that still has high potential.
Mr Vasudevan said central Tamil Nadu region consisting of Tiruchy, Thanjavur and Madurai is the ‘golden triangle of South India’ and would be an ideal destination to operate a ‘palace on wheels’ by the railways, which is very popular in the other states.
Karnataka is operating luxury trains to cater to foreign tourists, which is very popular he said and urged the Indian railway authorities to introduce such trains connecting the TN’s tourist spots.
Speaking on the occasion, B.C.H. Negi, Airport director Tiruchirappalli said the introduction of the electronic visa system at the airport here is the most significant step for arrival of more number of foreign tourists. It will attract the foreign tourists to choose Tiruchy airport as their landing destination in India. Tiruchy would also have air connectivity with Bengaluru shortly, he disclosed.
Distributing certificates and prizes to winners of quiz contest for college students, focused on the travel sector, Tiruchi divisional railway manager, Atul Kumar Agarwal said his efforts for a Shataabdi express between Tiruchirappalli and Chennai, made no headway as the traffic survey showed there will not be much patronage.
Dr K. Meena, former VC of Bharathidasan university said the ‘tourism quiz-2015’, attracted 64 teams from 26 educational institutions in and around Tiruchy. The TTF’s secretary Abu Bukker welcomed the gathering, while TTF’s vice president, Ratnakumar, proposed a vote of thanks.
