Early Times Report
Jammu, Dec 15: Though tourism sector contributes in big way to the economy of Jammu and Kashmir but this sector has witnessed biggest fall in the tourist footfall post abrogation of Article 370 in the last four years.
According to the data available with Early Times, in the last four months since the abrogation of contentious Article 370 on August 5, the tourist footfall has reduced to a great extent. Though the initial months' fall could be attributed to the advisories issued by Union government to not visit the state but despite lifting of the advisories, there seemed no improvement in the flow in comparison to the past few years.
The August month of this year recorded only 10130 tourists, while in the same month of previous year 2018, the tourist footfall was 86,134. The September month witnessed biggest fall ever with only 4562 tourists' flow, while for the same month in the year 2018, the number of tourists was 83,723, while in the month of October the total tourists visited the Union territory were 9327, while for the same month in 2018, the total tourists visiting the state were 59048.
Moreover the November month witnessed some upward trend with number of tourists visiting UT of J&K stood at 12,086, which was modest in comparison to 2018's figure of 39056. This number equals to about 30 percent of previous year figure and this increase could be attributed to improved security scenario and lifting of restrictions in valley. The same four months in year 2017 had witnessed tourists above 1 Lakhs figure, while the year 2016, had also witnessed fall in tourists but the fall was not significant as comparison to the ongoing year. |
