Amid terroism and separatists’ frequent call for bandh, Kashmir’s tourism industry looking to find ways for its own survival
| 02-Mar-2019 |
The Kashmir tourism industry has been badly affected by the ongoing terrorism and frequent call of bandh by separatists. The recent spate of terrorism and separatism in Kashmir has resulted in large scale cancellation of the Kashmir tour by tourists. Even the countries like the US, UK, and Australia issued a travel advisory to their citizens and asked them to remain cautious and not travel to Kashmir. In this situation the survival of the industry is at stake, therefore, Kashmir’s tourism players have decided to join hands to find ways for ‘saving’ the loss-making industry.
General Secretary of Travel Agents Society of Kashmir, Athar Yameen said, “From Maharashtra to Gujarat and even West Bengal, there is no place where outside tour operators have not given a boycott call to Kashmir as a tourism destination”. Hussain Khan, who owns The Chinar Resort and Spa at Pahalgam said, “The way things have been unfolding for Kashmir is unfortunate. Some of the associations of tour operators and hoteliers have now decided to brainstorm over how we can save this industry so we would be holding a joint meeting”. Mudasir, a tour operator said, “Almost 70% tourist bookings stand canceled while there are hardly 5% tourists present in Kashmir at present”.
Constant fall in tourism in Kashmir
In 2018 itself, Kashmir has reported a downfall of 23%, with only 8.5 lakh domestic and foreign tourists visiting the Kashmir valley, in comparison to 2017. In 2012, 13.08 lakh tourists including both domestic and foreign visited Kashmir. If 2012 is kept as the base year, a decline of over 4.5 lakh tourists meaning a 35% dip in tourist arrivals is reported in 6 years. The year wise footfall of tourists starting from 2012 followed by 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 was 13.08 lakh, 11.71 lakh, 11.67 lakh, 9.27 lakh, 12.12 lakh, 11 lakh, and 8.5 lakh respectively.