Special tourist lounges to be opened in 3 main railway stations

In a bid to make Railways more tourist-friendly, the Tourism Department is all set to open specialised tourist lounges in three main railway stations in the state.

The lounges, being opened on an experimental basis, will be extended to other stations that have heavy inflow of tourists, in the next phase.

“The lounges are a piloting project of the Kerala government. The aim of the lounges is to counter the claim that many of our railway stations are not tourist-friendly. In the first phase we will be looking at launching the facility in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode stations. In the subsequent phases of the project, the lounges can be extended to other stations that have heavy inflow of tourists,” said Deputy Director of Kerala Tourism Department, M S Venugopal, who is in charge of the project.

The lounges will have facilities including tourist information counter, locker facilities, a souvenir shop, wi-fi facility, washrooms, cafe, berths for temporary resting, etc.

A caretaker will also be employed to answer the tourists. The seating arrangements and other facilities will be on par with that in airports. The Tourism Department will extract a particular fee for the facility from the tourists.

The land survey for the project has been completed and the proposals have been submitted to the Railway Department.

Once the agreement is made with the Railways, the design of the lounges will be allotted to one of the empanelled architects of the Tourism Board. Each of the facility is expected to cost about `1 crore. As per sources with the Tourism Department, all the lounges will have  the same branded design and architecture.

The initiative to make the Railways more tourist-friendly does not stop with the  stations.

In fact the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation in association with the Railways will set up an exclusive tourist coach on a Bangalore to Thiruvananthapuram train.

The coach is mainly aimed at tourists availing the packages of the KTDC. The facilities available, including seating, will be on par with those in flights.