Travel alert: Tourism department to introduce one-day intra-district tourist packages in Coimbatore

Coimbatoreans would soon have a bunch of tourist attractions in the district that they could travel at nominal fare as the Tourism Department is planning to introduce one-day intra-district tourist package. In a first in the state, the Tourism Department in Coimbatore is coming up with tourism packages to tour to the famous locations within the district at affordable pricing.

Initially, the department will offer four major tourism hubs for the choice of the tourists namely Baralikadu, Valparai, Kovai Kutrallam, and Ooty. The department has recently received official confirmation for introducing the packages in Coimbatore that is expected to be rolled out in December. Likewise, it will introduce a package for foreigners that allows them to rent a vehicle to tour within the district.

These new developments have come after Coimbatore bagged the 10th position in the 'Ranking of districts for the year-2018' released recently by the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation. According to the rank list, the Coimbatore district recorded nearly 1.74 crore domestic tourist visitors and 54,477 foreign tourist visitors during 2018. District Tourist Officer T Aravintha Kumar said the one-day intra-district tourism package is to promote the tourism attractions within Coimbatore. He added the department has finalised the locations for the one-day tour after studying about the footfall rate in the region. "Valparai would always be on the checklist of every tourist because of the cool climate and the lush greenery," he said.

Speaking about the improvements in tourism activity in Coimbatore, he said that there are several ongoing developmental works initiated under the Asian Development Bank (ADB) scheme. "Through the ADB scheme, the signage, tourism boards, LED lights, and tower lights are being renovated," said Aravintha Kumar. Various programmes are being hosted to sensitise public on tourism; stalls would be established during the travel mart in other states as a promotional activity. The tourism department is now planning to form a tourism advisory committee with Collector K Rajamani as its chairman and officials from other departments including Forest, Revenue, HR&CE as its member secretaries.