MYSURU: After a gap of two years, international tour operators are all smiles again with India starting flight operations to over three dozen countries from early this week. The ticket prices are already soaring high since the announcement.
Enquiries have started to pour in and travel operators expect good business in the coming tourism season.
Tourist Guide Association chief SJ Ashok claimed the government’s announcement to give free visas for the first five lakh tourists post Covid is a big push for tourism promotion and would likely attract more visitors in the coming months. “There are enquiries from European nations especially from France and from the UK. Bookings have started there and this season hopefully there will be more inbound visitors,” he stated.
It has been two years since international tour services came to a grinding halt with the suspension of flight services. Now that cases have reduced operators are busy, and are back to normal planning tours.
A small batch of tourists from Israel and Spain have visited Mysuru and the inbound tourists are likely to arrive in big numbers in August, stated Ashok.
Skal Association president BS Prashanth said the flight ticket prices have gone up and are likely to increase. He said international tourist traffic, especially to Dubai, has picked up with 35% of international visitors travelling to the destination due to the 2020 expo. Outbound traffic to Singapore, Malaysia and Bangkok has been increasing. Now that the government has resumed flight services, the industry is likely to bustle in the coming weeks, as people are ready to travel abroad for vacations.
Mahadevaswamy V of a travel agency confirmed enquiries about packages or services to international destinations are going up by the day. “Now with the government restarting flight service to more nations like in pre-Covid period, surely there would be more activity,” he said.
