Jammu: Autumn, winter season was the main month of attraction, 93 thousand in October, 1,27 thousand in November and 1,18 thousand tourists visited Kashmir till 25th in December.
Kashmir tourism is at its best in the last decade. If seen, the number of tourists visiting Kashmir has exceeded the highest number of previous years.
According to the statistics of the tourism department, 6,40,000 tourists have come to Kashmir from January this year till December 25. October, November and December broke all previous records as autumn and winter season remained the main attraction for tourists from across the country and some foreign tourists have also visited the valley.
Deputy Director Kashmir Tourism Ahsan-ul-Haq said, “In October we had 93000 tourists and in November it crossed the 1 lakh mark for the first time and 1,27,000 tourists visited Kashmir and by 25 December it was already We have crossed the 1,18,000 mark, and we are expecting that we will have a few more thousand tourists by the end of tourists in Kashmir as bookings can be seen at many tourist places.
The number of tourists in Kashmir was very less in the last two years due to the COVID pandemic. But after covid the tourism department worked very hard to revive the tourism industry of Kashmir along with the tourist players, many initiatives were taken. The main step was to fully vaccinate all the tourist players and officials of the tourism department, which they did on a war footing and this time 97% of all those double doses were vaccinated.
Ahsan-ul-Haq said, “We aggressively vaccinated the tourist players present here and about 98% of them were vaccinated, we enhanced the post covid capability capabilities of the tourist players.”
Apart from taking several other steps, the department along with tourist players organized road shows across the country to attract more and more tourists to the valley. Around 75 new lesser-known tourist destinations were opened in Kashmir, resulting in a boost to tourism, with the Gurez area of Bandipora on the LoC witnessing huge influx of tourists in the summer.
Ahsan-ul-Haq said, “Post-Covid, the joint effort of the department and tourist players revived the tourism in Kashmir. I am happy to inform that around 6 lakh tourists have visited Kashmir, we are hopeful that winter More people will come in. We campaigned aggressively and now we are seeing the results.”
“This year we have taken a historic step in that we have detected 75 lesser known destinations that we are promoting in addition to our destinations. We promoted Gurez aggressively and we saw a huge tourist influx there in the summer. We Winters are trying to keep Sonmarg open, Pahalgam is already packed.”
In addition, adventure tourism was also taken into account. summer tracking program Held and in winter skiing and winter sports are on the cards.
Ahsan said, “This year we saw that tourists were attracted towards trekking in summer and many people went to the valley for this, this diversification helped us to bring in adventure-loving tourists here.”
The department is starting a New Year’s welcome program with a week-long celebration starting on Christmas on Saturday (December 25) at the twin tourist resorts of Gulmarg and Pahalgam. The festivities will end on the night of December 31. It is meant to celebrate the winter season of tourism. It is a week-long grand festival to convey the message that Kashmir is ready to host tourists.
ski resort Gulmarg is packed Hotels, huts and guest houses are all booked within 100% occupancy. If we compare with the previous years, Pahalgam is also very busy. The department is trying to keep Sonamarg tourist spot open for winters this year otherwise it remains closed for winters in the east.
Diversification of products and opening of new tourist destinations and promotion of adventure tourism and heritage tourism are the future plans of the tourism department and they expect tourism to pick up in Kashmir next year if all goes well.
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