[Resolved]  Nepal Pilgrim Travel — points of poor compliance by the tour operator

Address:

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Following points of feedback are offered, as a measure of constructive approach to enhance your quality of service to your customers undertaking yatra through your esteemed service. 1. Quality of food served by you to the yatris under exacting conditions of travel schedules deserve all my applause. The varying change of menus with simplicity of food choice generally was quite appealing, and seems to have been devised with careful thought. 2. Personal attention through their physical presence by Geetha madam, Mr.Suneel and young Pankaj and accessible to yatris deserves all my praise. 3. The all air-conditioned bus as customised to serve meeting the various itineraries of the trip is excellent and shows that your management having personal care for the comfort of the passengers. Even while waiting at some points for prolonged periods, the driver was running the engine to provide the air conditioned comfort for the passengers appear to be a lot thoughtful on the part of the driver. The driver deserves my special commendation for having been quite steady with his display of skills, while his assistant been quite cooperative in handling the stowage of personal effects in the boot space. As the roads in part of the highways have not been quite upto the mark, perhaps, he could not see to the comfort ride of the passengers, which is beyond his control. 4. The travel organisation made a good tie up with Pandiths at various places, with good understanding of significances towards performing the various tharpana/srartha rituals. This deserves a good praise. 5. Care taken by Mr. Suneel in seeing to my night accommodation at the hotel and with night meal at Gorakhpur on 12th sept shows that he personally cares for the welfare of his customer, even after the conclusion of the tour at outstation. Points where you need to be critical to bring about improvements: 1. While the quality of food was more than acceptable, sometimes there had been feelings from some that quantity food for second helping was not adequate. Secondly, there is a scope for your team to improve on the hospitality, in particular to the senior citizens, as a special gesture, which may go a long way to speak of your service. 2. The bus though was an air conditioned one, it had no air cushion as suspension, which caused serious effects on the backbones, particularly for yatris seated at the back. There was quite a few occasions the jolt raised the passengers from their seats almost by a foot, quite unexpectedly. Please look for a Volvo bus for a better passenger comfort. 3. The itineraries of the places of pilgrimage are indeed far from each other, which entailed very long stretch of road journeys, and senior citizens/ women-folks found this very tedious. The discomfort after road travel was further compounded by short night stays in the rooms, with early morning departures, packing and quitting from rooms. The physical health of senior citizens and women must be respected and well regarded while planning these road journeys. Perhaps most passengers may not mind extra days at a cost, as a result of stopping en route for night halts. I feel that senior citizens and women require a lot more consideration on this issue, as good health is paramount for sustained travel. In any case, in my opinion road journeys should not stretch longer than 5 to 6 hours. 4. Upon arrival of passengers by train after almost 40 hours, and at odd time of the night, they expect to be sheltered in a hotel for using toilet and freshening up. This point does not seem to have met your consideration when around 25 passengers arriving at Allahabad station around 2 am. They were quite taken aback when they heard the announcement by Mr.Suneel that there is another 4 hours of road journey ahead to reach Chitrakoot, without facility/time to freshen up for the travel. This may please be avoided. Kindly well inform the passengers through your general instructions that this might sometimes be inevitable to meet with schedule and that they may mentally be prepared to face this and use the toilets in the train. 5. Bus trip to Nimisaranyam from Chitrakoot took much longer time, for reasons unknown, guessing that the driver wished to avoid toll charges. We felt that he could have taken the national highway between Alllahabad and Lucknow rendering the journey as pleasant travel and better speed would have resulted in diesel economy, offsetting the toll charges. 6. For this stretch of kasi-Gaya-Ayodhya yatra, an extra two days and extra cost would have been well justified, giving more comfortable travel time followed by rest at the hotels. 7. Lastly, I appeal to the organisers that an effective communication is established through periodical interactions both ways, particularly closely LISTENING to the woes of the customers, and you must be guided with firm principle that CUSTOMERS ARE RIGHT, while you do your utmost part as service providers. 8.Rude language or harsh behaviour on the part of organisers (tour operator) must be totally avoided if they should go forward to establish a good reputation. Regardless of past laurels, what matters is the present performance ALWAYS! Trust the above points may be well taken to ensure that your customers continue to patronise and further recommend you to others that you are indeed a wonderful and most reliable travel agency, who pays close care to the customers. The above notes are offered without prejudice. Kind regards S.Govindarajan Yatri (03-15th sept 13