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By Prasun Sonwalkar
It'sthe summer holiday season in Britain, and guess which bestseller travel guide is flying off the shelves in Britain? India.
Newer and updated editions of the travel guides to India are being printed to cater to the demand. A travel publisher in Bath has released a ground-breaking surfing guide and new editions of four of its most popular books, include the travel guide to India.
The guide to India contains 1,422 pages and is now in its 13th edition. It names the scenic tea gardens of Darjeeling and Goa'sbeaches as the top two ´must see? spots in the country. Compared to the same period last year, the company has reported a rise in sales of upto 40 per cent.
The just published new editions of guides to India, Croatia, Scotland and Egypt will be up for sale. Surfing Europe will be in bookstores by the end of the month.
Patrick Dawson, managing director of Footprint Handbooks, said the latest publications offered plenty of variety. He said: ?We have a good mixture of books. The guide to India is a good, old favourite, and the Scotland book is a home favourite. Croatia was a hot destination last year and will continue to be so this year. Egypt is a slightly tricky area in that as it'snot far away from Iraq, but it'sshowing strong growth at the moment.?
The third edition of Footprint Scotland features tips on whale spotting and advice on selecting the best whisky.
Footprint Croatia, now in its second edition, includes an in-depth section on the country'stop diving sites. Dawson said the company'ssales were up by 35 to 40 per cent when compared to last year.
?We are finding that sales, particularly in the UK, are increasing substantially at the moment, which is obviously very encouraging. It'sa very good and very healthy increase. It shows that the Britons are still travelling overseas, despite these troubled times,? he added.
Indian call centres praised
Services offered by Indian call centres have come in for praise from British citizens despite the trade unions expressing their ire at jobs being shopped to Asia.
Peter Wright, a resident of Scunthorpe in Scotland, wrote to The Times expressing his satisfaction with the Indian call-centre staff. He said that the Indian staff were more helpful than those in Scotland or other parts of Britain. He wrote: ?Sir, I have had the misfortune recently to contact call centres in the north-east and in Scotland on several occasions without making any progress. The call-centre staff seemed incapable of understanding the most simple situation or dealing constructively with a problem. How refreshing it was to hear an Asian accent on my fifth or sixth attempt to resolve a reasonably simple matter.
?The gentleman to whom I spoke in India was courteous, helpful and capable of understanding how the problem could be resolved. In India a job in a call centre carries status and a regular income and attracts high-calibre candidates. In the UK, the call centre appears to be the last refuge of the surly and the indifferent. In my view, the sooner all call-centre work is transferred to Asia the better.?
Britons visiting India for medical treatment
Medical services provided in India have come in for great praise from British patients.
Reports in the British press about outsourcing clinical tests to India sent alarm bells among health professionals in the same way as outsourcing of finance and call-centre jobs to India had some time ago.
Preliminary talks have been going on between Indian company SRL Ranbaxy and British health authorities to test and analyse blood and urine samples of British patients. Under the proposal, the samples would be shipped to India and the results communicated speedily via the internet. The business is said to be worth billions of pounds. A mother of two from Devon travelled to Chennai for an operation after being told she would have to wait a year for treatment on the National Health Service (NHS) for an agonising shoulder injury, and who returned rather delighted.
Sarah Paris, 43, praised the Indian doctors and hospital staff, and joked at the way she was looked after and made it ?almost worth being ill.? She was charged ? 1,700 for all her treatment?a fraction of what she would have paid if she had gone private at home. She discovered it would cost more than
? 10,000 to be operated on privately in Britain, but India was ?a fraction of the price?. Sarah Paris had to get a friend to show her how to find the website of Apollo Hospital in India, and 10 days after sending an e-mail to the hospital, she was undergoing surgery.
But reports warn that the move to ship blood and urine samples to India would adversely affect career options of pathologists in Britain. The Royal College of Pathologists warned that the scheme might damage patients? welfare.
Its president, Professor James Underwood, said: ?I am concerned that laboratory tests and their quality assurance are being regarded as separable from the clinical interpretation of the test results by appropriately trained pathologists who work in teams responsible for the care of NHS patients.?
Britain's15,000 laboratory technicians are also worried that the plan might affect their aim to improve salary rates of ? 11,000-13,000 a year. But a health department spokesman denied there are any plans to have clinical testing done in India. He said: ?We meet companies on a regular basis as a matter of course, but the department is not in commercial talks with Fortis, SRL Ranbaxy or any other company about outsourcing pathology services to India. We are exploring a number of options for independent sector involvement in diagnostics.
?The outsourcing of such services is being looked at as one possibility, but we are a long, long way away from any deal as none has been discussed.?
(The writer is a UK-based journalist and can be contacted on [email protected])
