Luxury on WHEELS

deccan odyssey, mtdc’s brand new premium tourism product, is also the latest addition to the innovative conferencing market, says Achal Dhruva

The trend of mixing business with leisure has become an integral part of the corporate culture. Conferencing in the corporate world has slowly but steadily been moving out from the confines of the board room. Beach resorts and cruise liners have emerged as popular options and increasingly the accent is on ‘innovative conferencing.’ Companies are willing to loosen their purse strings in favour of conferences, which are more of an ‘experience’ combining work with recreation.

The latest offering to hit the innovative conferencing market in India is the Deccan Odyssey, the country’s third and the eighth luxury train in the world. A joint venture of the state government, railway ministry and the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC), the luxury train was flagged off from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) in Mumbai by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on January 16.

Positioned against the great luxury trains of the world like the Orient Express or the Royal Scotsman, the Deccan Odyssey combines the train experience with a gamut of world class destinations like Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Goa, Pune, Aurangabad and Jalgaon, a kaleidoscope of beaches, forts, ancient caves, wineries and is billed as the last word in a luxury experience.

Aimed at placing Maharashtra on the map of premium tourist destinations, the Rs 32 crore train comprises of 21 carriages hosting a total of 48 suites with four presidential suites and has a staff of 50 with two valets per cabin catering to 96 passengers on board. The train boasts of two restaurants (dishing up authentic local cuisine from the regions it passes through and continental food) and a pantry in each coach, a bar that takes up an entire coach, a gym, beauty shop, yoga centre and ayurvedic treatments. The catering and housekeeping has been outsourced to the Taj Group of Hotels.

Recreating the opulence of the Maratha royalty, the interiors are elaborate and the detailing which went into each and every aspect of the coaches constructed at the Integral Coach Factory is mind boggling. Each design element needed close to 350 drawings, and the material had to be not just aesthetic, but also able to withstand the vibrations.

MTDC consulted various local and international manufacturers, professionals, designers and architects, and incorporated new technologies to reduce sound, absorb vibrations and reduce UV rays. The interiors were done by a firm that does interiors of heritage hotels, and the toilets on board were modelled on the lines of those on international luxury trains.

However, the piece de resistance of the train and one of the major features which places it a notch above Rajasthan’s Palace on Wheels is the conference coach. Equipped with the state-of-the-art facilities right from a business centre to a cyber cafe, the conference coach accommodating 30 passengers is designed in such a way that it could also be converted into a disco-cum-pub for evening entertainment. Passengers will also be able to avail foreign exchange facility on board.

According to Ashish Kumar Singh, managing director, MTDC, besides the high end leisure tourist, they are also looking at tapping the MICE and conference market. A conference on board affords the luxury of taking a break between proceedings to do a spot of sightseeing. Besides, companies with industrial plants located at the various stopovers could combine the conference along with plant visits for the entire delegation and also negotiate deals with dealers in those centres. The other advantage is that members can take their spouses along and make the conference trip a kind of working holiday in the company of the entire family.

Samvad, the conference hall

A journey on the Deccan Odyssey also makes an excellent incentive offering for its novelty and a unique experience. “It’s an experience for train buffs and seasoned travellers who have already done a lot of things and are looking for something new. Even for a domestic tourist, I want people to think, ‘I’ll save up to go on the Deccan Odyssey,” says Singh. The package is priced at US$ 350 for a suite and US$ 700 for the presidential suite per person per night.

“In the domestic segment, MTDC is planning to target the well-travelled Indian, who has tried luxury cruises, for example, and corporates, for whom this would be a novel way to do business. MTDC will consider chartering the train during the off-season for specific destinations, such as Mumbai to Aurangabad and back, or Mumbai to Goa and back,” informed Singh.

A well planned advertising campaign was launched in January last year in select international travel publications along with road shows in a few cities overseas to generate a buzz in the trade around the luxury train. A four-ad print campaign was launched in January last year in select publications such as Conde Nast Traveller, Travel Agent, Tatler and Tutturismo, in Europe and the US.

In keeping with the premium image of the train, the campaign targeted countries such as France, Germany, Italy, UK and Japan. The four ads, with uncluttered, stunning visuals, depict the way royalty travelled in the past, on a ‘train’ of elephants, palanquins, horse-drawn carriages and boats. The visuals were shot in the Maharashtra countryside. The headline reads, ‘A train journey where you travel like Indian royalty’, and the copy invites the reader to ‘experience the decadent comforts of India’s regal past’. While a great deal of awareness has been created for Deccan Odyssey and it has elicited a lot of interest from international GSAs, MTDC is hopeful that the corporate world gets on the ‘fast track’ to experience this unique concept.