Rao Travels, a company offering tour packages, is setting up a 100-room hotel in Tirupati. The hotel with investment of Rs 10 crore will be operational in 2013. Funds will be raise from banks, travel finance corporation and internal accruals.

It is a natural diversification for the company, which has taken on lease 1,750 hotels across the country to cater to its travel tours facilitated by a fleet of 300 vehicles. “We connect most of the pilgrim and tourist places in North India.”

The company which won the “best domestic tour operator” award for 2011 from the Union Ministry of Tourism, is also setting up what it claims to be the country’s first 24/7, 365 day, free travel call centre in Bangalore. It will be functional by April-end and provide information on tourism and travel in all the south Indian languages to begin with, said Mr P. Sudhakar Rao, Director.

Rao Travels is also planning to open offices in all the districts of Andhra Pradesh. It will recruit 70 tour escorts for the package tours to facilitate language translation and familiarity with North Indian pilgrimage centres such as Kedarnath, Badrinath, Haridwar, etc, he told Business Line.

Plans are on to expand operations to North-East, especially Darjeeling soon and also bring more tourists to Andhra Pradesh, he added.

source: http://www.TheHinduBusinessLine.com / Companies/ by The Hindu Bureau / Hyderabad, March 09th, 2012