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A palace on wheels will soon chug into God’s Own Country with tourists on board. Unlike the 14-coach original serving tourists in Rajasthan, this one will be a single coach on the Bangalore-Kanyakumari Island Express.

The coach, an AC two-tier one, will be taken on lease by Kerala Tourism Development Corporation. This will be the first time that Southern Railway will be leasing out a coach exclusively for tourists.

The interior of the coach will be refurbished to create a luxurious ambience. The floor, seats, windows, ceiling and toilets will be redone.

There will be uniformed valets and stewards to serve tourists. “We want to scale-up the travel experience, to make it at par with air travel or even better,” a senior KTDC official said.

In fact, the objective is to woo tourists who prefer air travel to rail. With air fares rising exponentially, the time seems right to lure air travellers to take the train.

The exterior of the coach will also be colourfully redesigned to reflect the Kerala Tourism brand. By choosing a relatively small-distance train like the Island Express, KTDC is testing the waters.

“Already, with a large Malayalee IT crowd in Bengaluru, there is a huge demand for the train. So the venture will be risk-free,” the KTDC official said. Once the tourist coach is found to be popular, KTDC will lease out coaches in trains starting from Mumbai and Pune.

KTDC will have to pay nearly Rs 1.25 lakh per journey. There will be 14 trips a month. The price will be slightly higher than AC two-tier fares. And for wrapping the train’s exterior with Kerala Tourism stickers, KTDC will have to pay Southern Railways an annual rent of one lakh.