Gloomy season for tour operators

Sandhya K, who is working in Singapore, has cancelled her plan to come to Chennai recently as she does not want to travel with her one-year-old son in heavy rain.

A temple trip she had planned with one of the tour operators has also been cancelled. “I’m waiting for the rain to subside,” she said.

Sandhya is one of the many tourists who have put off or cancelled their trips in view of the recent rain havoc.

Suresh Venkataraman, Operations Head, Akshaya India Tours and Travels Ltd, said almost 75 per cent of their bookings were cancelled because of the rains. “We usually get around 100 tourists in November, but so far we have received only 25,” he said.

For tour operators such as Akshaya travels, their inbound season is between October and December when overseas tourists visit India to escape their harsh winter. Since this time also coincides with vacation time of countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, they operate 10-12 tours, covering Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

A Kanchana, Country Head – Mukthi Group, a travel agency in Chennai, said their revenues had taken a hit. “Most of the temple tours got cancelled because of the rain. We will be suffering a huge loss this season, as we will be resuming our operation in January,” she added.

Even as travel agencies are suffering, some of the hotels in Chennai are seeing full occupancy. According to a spokesperson of Hotel Hilton, the hotel was running on full occupancy despite the rain.

Sashi Kumar U, Senior General Manager, Radisson Blu GRT, said the hotel occupancy rate was 95 per cent last weekend and early this week despite a few cancellations. The average occupancy rate for the hotel was 80 per cent last year.

“On Monday, November 23, we were houseful as many business people and locals turned up as they were not able to reach their places,” he added. In order to accommodate them, the hotel turned its spa beds into makeshift beds.