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| 4 days of violence dents Kashmir, 1500 bookings cancelled | | |
Peerzada Ummer
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Apr 18: During the past one week when the violence over the killing of five persons engulfed the Kashmir region, more than 1500 booking at hotels here have been cancelled by the tourists.
The tour operators and the people associated with the tourism business have started facing tough time with the fresh spell of cancellations taking toll. "This is something that we have seen when the worst ever catastrophic floods wreaked havoc in Kashmir. The situation at that time was dreadful and the industry witnessed the worst ever decline. After that, we were hoping of the revival but stars seem to be in favour of none," says Irshad Ahmad, a local tour operator.
The hotel owners told Early Times that as the news spread over the violence related incidents taking place in various areas of Kashmir valley, requests for the cancellation of the trips from the tourists hailing from various states of India was received. "As far as I can tell you more than 1500 bookings in the local hotels were cancelled. The tourists have out rightly preferred not to visit valley wherein curfew was clamped down for the four continuous days amid the violent clashes," says Abdul Rahman, a local house boat owner.
The number of tourists coming making Kashmir as their travel destination always depended on the situation in the region. According to the official figures, 1314432 domestic and foreign tourists visited the Valley in 2011 excluding the Amarnath yatris whose number was 634000. In 2012, the number of tourists and Amarnath Yatris was 1368765 and 621000 respectively.
The number of tourist arrivals dropped to 1171130 in 2013 due to the separatist violence which erupted after the hanging of the parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. But in the year 2014, the tourist arrival witnessed the surge again with 146718 foreign and domestic tourists making valley their holiday destination. However, the tourist inflow witnessed a dip during the aftermath of the 2014 catastrophic floods. In the year 2015, 10 lakh tourists visited Kashmir.
Meanwhile, life in Valley has started moving back to normalcy after remaining crippled for five days due to strikes and protests. The train services between Baramulla and Banihal resumed this morning after remaining suspended for four days while mobile internet services too were restored. "One would only hope that such a situation is not witnessed during the summers ahead or else it will be a big blow to the economy. The government needs to take concrete efforts so that such a situation is never witnessed again," says Hilal Ahmad, a local tour operator. |
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