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Snowfall, Diwali break: Tourist footfall doubles
The Himalayan valley this year saw the highest ever tourist arrivals, with numbers crossing 23 lakh, including 3.5 lakh Amarnath yatris till October 20, officials said
Early snowfall in the ski resort of Gulmarg ahead of the Diwali holidays has almost doubled the daily footfall of tourists in the Kashmir valley.
The Himalayan valley this year saw the highest ever tourist arrivals, with numbers crossing 23 lakh, including 3.5 lakh Amarnath yatris till October 20, officials said.
They said the snowfall on Thursday, coinciding with the upcoming Diwali festival has attracted many tourists to Gulmarg in north Kashmir.
Javid-ur-Rehman, assistant director of tourism, Gulmarg, said that snowfall was one month early this year, sending a good message to those wanting to travel.
“Normally, we would get snowfall in mid-November. This year it’s early, though most of the snowfall was over Kongdori and Afarwat mountains. The snowfall is attracting more visitors. The footfall of tourists has almost doubled to 4000-5000 daily from 2500 daily in the first week of October,” Rehman said.
Kashmir’s resort towns of Gulmarg and Sonmarg received the season’s first snowfall on Thursday, with Gulmarg having a snow depth of 4-5 inches in the main bowl-shaped resort.
Rehman said that they are welcoming people from Maharashtra, Bengal and Gujarat. “Many foreigners are also coming from countries like Thailand and Bangladesh,” he said.
The hotels are almost sold out for the coming winter as well. “Almost all winter tourists converge to Gulmarg owing to many activities offered. Hotels are sold out, and we are expecting foreign tourists as well,” he said.
Zeeshan Khan, tourism department’s assistant director for publicity, also confirmed the heavy rush adding that all major 3-star and 5-star hotels in the summer capital Srinagar and Gulmarg are packed for the Diwali holidays from October 24 to November 1.
“We have attracted 1.20 lakh tourists in Kashmir till October 20. The next 10 days will see heavy footfall. We are expecting the number to cross 2 lakh,” Khan said. “These are good signs, and we expect a bumper season again as Gulmarg resort is booked up to March,” he said.
The official said that the number of tourists visiting Kashmir this year has broken all records. “Till October 20, we received 19.5 lakh tourists, and if we include (Amarnath) pilgrims also, the number crossed 23 lakh,” he said.
The highest grossing months were April (2.8 lakh), May (3.75 lakh) and June (3.4 lakh), while there were 1.05 lakh arrivals in February and 1.2 lakh arrivals in September.
“We have never seen such arrivals in the past, and we are trying to capitalize further,” he said.
The tourism department is planning a host of activities for the next few months. “There will be a houseboat festival in November, a golf tournament and then winter games in Gulmarg,” he said.
One of the major tourist spots which attracted a lot of people to the valley was the opening of the Tulip garden on the banks of Dal Lake in the last week of March.
The garden witnessed an all-time high arrival of over 3.5 lakh visitors, locals as well as domestic tourists, this year since its establishment in 2007.
Tourism had nosedived in Kashmir after August 5, 2019, when the special status of the erstwhile state was revoked and restrictions imposed on the movement of people and communication shut for months. The situation was then further aggravated by the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 and the beginning of 2021. The arrivals picked speed from October 2021 and have not stopped since then.
