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Kashmir sans tourists on Christmas, New Year
While most hotels have scaled down operations, some have been forced to cut down on staff
For the first time in three decades, Kashmir will witness minimum presence of tourists to mark Christmas and New Year celebrations as a fallout of the lockdown after the revocation of Article 370 on August 5.
On August 3, the J&K government had issued an advisory asking tourists and Amaranth Yatris to leave Kashmir.
Ever since, the efforts to woo back tourists to Kashmir by the government including schemes like ‘Back to Valley’ have not borne much fruit. The government has tried to infuse life in the struggling tourism industry by organising promotional campaigns in places like Kolkata and Pune to allay apprehensions about tourists’ safety in Kashmir.
The August 3 government advisory for tourists not only resulted in the tourists cancelling their bookings and fleeing the valley but also shook the confidence of potential tourists who had planned to visit Kashmir.
As a consequence, the owners of hotels and houseboats have suffered huge losses. The restaurants and handicrafts businesses have also recorded a significant decline in earnings.
While most hotels have scaled down operations, some have been forced to cut down on staff.
The internet gag has nearly crippled the operations of tour operators.
“The hotel industry never recovered after the advisory, though the government did withdraw the advisory later, but that did not help infuse confidence among tourists for returning to the Valley,” Mushtaq Chaya, chairman, J&K Hoteliers Club, told IANS.
Chaya said the situation had never been this bad even at the peak of militancy during 1990s.
“The business is almost zero right now”, Chaya said. “Situation hasn’t been this bad since 1996, lakhs of people linked directly to tourism sector in Kashmir are facing tough times,” he added.
In Kashmir, the snow-peaked Gulmarg ski resort is the most sought after winter destination for the visitors. Every year, thousands of tourists come to the Valley to celebrate Christmas and New Year. That trend continued even at the peak of militancy.
Mohammad Shafi, a tourist photographer at Gulmarg, says the tourist inflow to the ski resort has dropped drastically.
“On a normal day I would earn ₹1,000, but these days I earn not more than ₹100 a day,” Mohammad Shafi said. “The situation was very bad in August and September, it has marginally improved now, but that has not helped some 25 odd tourist photographers in Gulmarg,” he added.
To attract tourists, the tourism department is planning to organise adventure activities in Gulmarg like skiing, snow board ice-skating and ice-hockey.
According to official figures, as many as 35,900 tourists have visited Kashmir from August to November. In December, on an average not more than 300 tourists have been arriving to Kashmir daily.
