Today's Navhind Times....
NT Staff Reporter
Panaji Aug 18: The chartered flights landing in the state, carrying
tourists from foreign countries, is not new to Goa and Goans, but a chartered train
that arrived at Margao today was something new which attracted everyone’s
attention, particularly of those in the tourism industry.
The train with 12 bogies, arrived with 850 people on board at Margao this
afternoon from Rajkot in Gujarat, opening a new chapter in the tourism field.
This is for the first time in the history of tourism in the state, that a
full train was chartered to carry tourists.
The tourists hailing from Saurashtra region of Gujarat will be celebrating
Janmashtami festival here. All the hotels where the tourists have been put up have
made special itinerary for celebration of the Janmashtami, including holding of
pooja tomorrow.
The holidaymakers, who arrived after a 23-hour journey, will return home
on August 23 by the same train. According to organisers of the charter, the train
journey from Rajkot to Margao takes 20 hours normally, but due to recent train tragedy
the speed of the train was reduced during the night as precautionary measure.
According to the tourism director, Mr N Nanarayana this is a new concept
in promotion of tourism, which had been developed by the marketing team of Cidade de
Goa along with Favourite Tours and Forex Pvt Ltd. Nearly half of the chartered
tourists (400) arriving by train have been put up at Cidade de Goa.
According to the organisers, this unique concept opens up a host of
opportunities to bring in such trains with domestic tourists from other parts of the
country, particularly during the monsoon season.
On efforts for tourism promotion, Mr Suryanarayana said the tourism
department had launched a drive to attract tourists not only during the monsoon
season but other lean eriods with various campaigns, including endorsementof Goa as
tourists destination by celebrities including Dino Morrea and Perizad Zorabian.
Besides, 10 and 30 second commercials would be telecast on all major
channels, including Star Plus, Star Gold, Star News, Zee Cinema, Zee News,Sahara and
Setmax, to attract tourists to the state, said the tourism director.
The Goa Tourism will be the presenting sponsor for the Miss Indian
International scheduled to be held on August 25 and aired on Star Plus on August 31.
This is likely to attract a large number of tourist to the state, Mr Suryanarayana
told The Navhind Times.
He also stated that various other measures, including electronic brochure
containing high resolution images of state tourists places, had been initiated by his
department to woo tourists.
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