So, an added incentive for such travellers is the facility for the kids to stay with their parents for little or no extra cost. Trident hotels, for example, allow a complimentary bed in the room, while both the ITC group and the Ashok chain of the ITDC have no extra charges for children under 12. The Taj Group, however, charges extra for children over 12 or in the 5-12 age group, with price variationsdepending on the destination. For example, the Ashok Family Holiday package allows you to check in at any of the ITDC's listed destinations with your spouse. For the business traveller, there's the Ashok Smart Package, as part of which you need to pay only the room tariff.
Meals are free for one person, but accommodation for the spouse in the same room is free.
The domestic traveller couldn't have got a better deal than this, thanks to the fact that the tourism industry is going through a rough patch due to global recession. Moreover, the South-east Asian countries are slashing their rates to keep their tourism sector at the front. The actual number of foreigners is less than a million. The rest are either NRIs or people with Indian passports.'' In contrast, says Goyal, the domestic tourism market can touch almost 20 million, making the sheer enormity of numbers an incentive that can be ignored only at one's own peril. And the reason for the slowdown in foreign tourists coming to India is a flawed civil aviation and tourism policy.