Tourists will soon be able to visit Kochi and Muziris heritage sites in air-conditioned boats.
The Kerala Tourism Infrastructure Limited (KTIL) will introduce such boats to boost tourism in the state.
The KTIL, with the assistance of the Kerala Industrial and Technical Consultancy Organisation (KITCO), will purchase these boats. Tender proceedings for this purpose have started.
According to KTIL officials, they will purchase five boats, which will operate as water taxi, and six bigger boats for ‘hop-on, hop-off’ services.
“We will buy 11 air-conditioned boats. Six boats with 25 seats will be used for the hop-on, hop-off services and five boats with six seats for water taxi services. After allotting the tender, boat services would start after four months. We hope that it would be introduced by March next year,” the officials said.
Three ‘hop-on, hop-off’ boats will conduct circular services in Kochi while three boats will tour Muziris sites starting from Paravoor.
Three boats would be operating in Kochi for water taxi services, while two in Paravoor.
The cost of a single water taxi would be around Rs 3.5 lakh while the bigger boat would cost around Rs 9 lakh.
“The main advantage of introducing boats is that it will ease out the heavy traffic flow and dearth of space in parking lots near the monuments. During the trip, official guides can inform tourists about the monuments and their historical significance,” the officials said.
The hop-on, hop-off service in Kochi will tour the High Court jetty, Marine Drive, Bolgatty Palace, Vypeen, Fort Kochi and Mattanchery.
The Muziris boat service, which starts from North Paravoor, will tour Kottapuram market, Kottapuram Fort, Kottayil Kovilakam, Pattanam, Kodungallur Reception Centre, Kottakavu Church, Pallipuram Fort and Gothuruthu Cheria Palli.
The Tourism Department has constructed several boat jetties near the heritage centres for docking tourist boats.