Heavy Rainfall Affects Holiday Plans

Tourism sector is largely affected due to the nonstop rain playing chaos in Kerala.
Tour operators in the city have been receiving a shocking number of cancellations in the past two days.

Number of flights, which were supposed to land at the Nedumbassery airport, had to return to Trivandrum. A tour operator, Alex Kuruvilla, claims that visitors who were supposed  to arrive on Monday, have either cancelled their trip or forced to land in Trivandrum and then get to Kochi by road.

Alex added, “Due to the closure of airport and flights cancelled, two of our guests who were supposed to depart for Ireland on Tuesday, have been forced to reschedule their trip. Both of them were supposed to join work on Wednesday as they were working professionals.”

A resort manager in Munnar, Roosevelt Joseph, who is at present in Delhi, is having a tough time in pursuing his guests to visit Kerala. Roosevelt Says, “People are yet to get over from the blow of Uttarakhand episode. Now, they are seeing floods and landslides in Kerala in the media. We are receiving a lot of cancellations since yesterday.”

“Numerous tourists used to visit Kerala in August, with the Nehru Trophy Boat Race being a chief attraction. And as always all the hotels were booked to their capacity this year also. But, now we are getting a lot of cancellations,” she adds.

Regardless of the situation, most of the resorts are trying their best to attract tourists. “Some of the hotels in Munnar and Idukki have updated us about the position there. They have even helped us rearrange the tour of the guests to safer places,” says Sreekumar, a city based tour operator. Alex says, “I made one of my guests reroute his journey to Kumarakom, instead of Munnar. And in spite of the change of plans, they are quite contented.”

However, all the guests are not contended. “One of our guests recurring from Munnar was supposed to visit Alleppey and take a houseboat cruise. But due to the land slides, they had to take another path and as an outcome, they had to check in late and check out early. They are not too pleased as they had to lose almost a day,” says Sreekumar.

Giby Joseph