MUMBAI – There’s an interesting AFP story in the Melbourne Age today.
An Indian tour operator wants warring couples to hold off consulting lawyers and go on holiday instead – with a relationship counsellor along for the ride.
KV Tours and Travels, based in Mumbai, has launched “divorce tourism” packages, designed to get spouses who have fallen out of love to bury the hatchet.
“With divorce tourism, what we’re trying to do is to bring together couples who are heading towards divorce to stop them,” the company’s chief executive Vijesh Thakker said.
Thakker said couples at loggerheads are likely to be unwilling to spend cash on each other, so he is instead targeting family members who want to save a failing marriage – often to save family honour – to foot the bill.
Different packages are available, from weeklong stays in hill station resorts to more expensive foreign destinations.
“We’re trying to send them where they have not been before, where there are not many people – and no relatives,” said Thakker.
Experienced marriage counsellors, whose costs are paid through deals made with hoteliers and travel agents, will accompany the husbands and wives, encouraging them to patch up their differences and make a fresh start.
Thakker, who hit on the concept after seeing a friend go through a divorce 18 months ago, said innovation was the key to helping boost tourist numbers.
‘People are ready to accept new concepts,” he said.
Source: AFP
