Despite Rupee fall, more Indian tourists in Europe this year

The rupee fall seems to have no effect on Indians travelling to Europe. According to RailEurope, a leader in European Rail distribution worldwide, this year, there has been an 18 per cent rise in the number of Indian tourists to European countries.

Till August 2013, around 2 lakh Indians travelled to European countries as compared to 1.5 lakh last year.

Places like Switzerland, Paris and London are emerging as the most popular European destinations among Indians.

For those planning a Europe Trip, here’s some news. Keeping the festival season in mind, the RailEurope India has launched a mobile application for the first time for travellers to book tickets besides introducing special payment modes.

Addressing the media, executive director of RailEurope India, Kunal Kothari said, “As India holds third position in terms of the number of tourists to European countries, we have decided to launch the mobile application. With the help of it, tourists can import booking, and also get information about the stations and the city.”

Kothari added, “The trend observed by us is that couples or groups are more interested to travel to European countries. However, most of the families visit these places from April to July. After Mumbai, Pune is an important sector for us for its cosmopolitan population.”

“As the website does not allow to book tickets with multiple cards, hence we are planning to start alternative payment modes, we are going to start offline payment mode wherein passengers can make the payment using cheque, IFSC code, demand draft, etc.”
For more information, log on to www.raileurope.co.in

Free pass
Now passengers, who book their passes from November till the end of the year, will get a free pass free with the purchase of four passes. The amount they will have to shell out is 193 euros (over Rs16,000 approx)