Tourism stakeholders heaved a sigh of relief as ferrying of tourists went on rather smoothly in on the hartal day.
But tourists who arrived in the city in public transport were in for a surprise as most hotels remained closed and autorickshaws kept off the road.
The happiest were tour operators engaged in ferrying 1,214 high-end tourists from the Cochin international airport to Wellingdon Island in Kochi, where German cruise ship Aida Bella made a turnaround stopover.
Sources in Lotus DMC, tour operator engaged to arrange transportation and visit to tourism locales, said that bulk transportation of guests to the cruise vessel concluded by around 4 p.m. Police provided security cover to the buses which conducted convoy service, they said and thanked the State government for this.
They will tour locales in Kochi, Fort Kochi, Kumbalanghi, Alappuzha, and Vaikom on Tuesday and return to the ship by evening, following which it will leave for Colombo. The ship, which is on a Salalah-Colombo tour, arrived in Kochi on Saturday morning with around 2,000 passengers and over 600 crew members.
Sanjeev Kumar, Managing Director of Lotus DMC, said the tourists booked the cruise over a year in advance and all arrangements were made. It goes without saying, that any untoward incident will have a major impact on cruise calls and tourist visits to Kerala, sending out a negative message about Kerala across the globe, he added.
