All the credit goes to IRCTC as people can book tickets more conveniently. IRCTC reported this increase is accurately 171.66 percent. The number of passengers went up from 51,363 in 2011-12 to as many as 1,39,533 in 2015-16.
Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat are the main parts of western zones which are the tourism hub of railways. The revenue increase is 3.4 time more from the past five years. In the year 2011-12 the revenue from this zone was 29.8 crore only but it went on increasing constantly and reached 131.44 crore in the 2015-16.
During the press meet organized at Wednesday, Arvind Malkhede, Group General Manager, West Zone, IRCTC said, Since the last five years, tourism has developed on a great basis in the western zone of the country. Having witnessed the rise, more rail tour and land packages were introduced with confirmed berths and comfortable arrangements.
From August 2016, 11 more rail tour packages and six train-coach packages are being introduced from Mumbai to many other parts of the country. Also, Four domestic air packages, two Bharat Darshan tours along with an outbound package to Australia are being introduced from Mumbai.
The main focus of the train packages are towards Kashmir, Tirupati and other popular tourists places in the country. The objective of the rail tour packages is to capture Maharashtra-based tourists.
Ready-to-drink packages of tea and coffee are process to be introduce soon.