Ishtiyaq Ahmad
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Oct 9: Expensive promotion campaigns of the tourism department have failed to increase the footfall of tourists to the Kashmir valley, especially the foreign tourists, who have been mainstay of tourism industry of Kashmir for decades.
"Though these programs continued from last several years but the reality is that it attracted few foreign visitors," sources within the department said.
Sources said that though foreign tourist arrivals to India witnessed 8.4 percent growth over last year, Tourism department Kashmir continues to fail in attracting foreigners in large number.
Sources said that the highest number of tourist arrivals was in 2014, a year in which tourism was affected by the floods that broke out in September. "Since 2016, the government has sent officials on seven international tours for the promotion of tourism, spending about Rs 58 lakh on them. The tours have been made twice to London and once to Dubai, Turkey, Moscow, Austria, and Berlin. But, there have been no tourist arrivals from these countries," sources maintained.
Sources said that the tourism department spent Rs 2.22 crore on making promotional films, mostly by production houses based outside the state. Rs 29 lakh were spent on the same through local production houses. However sources said that this could not make any difference on tourist arrival
Apart from this, Rs 2.32 crore has been spent on promotional advertisements in newspapers published outside the state, while about Rs 18.57 lakh were spent on promotional advertisements in local newspapers.
As per the official sources, the revenue earned by the tourism department through its various business ventures has also gone down - from Rs 1.7 crore in 2014-15 to about Rs 70 lakh in 2017-18.
The data reveals that in 2008 expenditure shown for the visit of a delegation to destinations outside the country is 8, 67,660 and the visitors were then Director Tourism from Jammu, Director Tourism Kashmir and deputy Director tourism Kashmir.
For their Berlin and London tours in 2008-09, the expenditure was Rs. 203971, Rs. 585340 and Rs. 790172 and again the visitors were the then Minister of tourism, secretary tourism and Deputy Director Tourism Kashmir.
Again in 2008-09, the expenditure shown on the visits of Director Tourism Kashmir, P.A to deputy Chief Minister, Director Tourism Jammu, was Rs 2316225, Rs 1126990.
The expenditure shown on the visit of the Minister and Director of Tourism Kashmir to Dubai in 2010 was Rs 898845, next time Minister and Director Tourism were accompanied by MD JKTDC and Director Tourism Kashmir to participate in Dubai global village festivals and the expenditures were Rs 1021552 and Rs 1222506. In the same year again the expenditure on their London visit was Rs 2287744.
In 2012 the expenditures shown on the visits of Minister Tourism, Directors of state Tourism, manager JKTDC,ADT Gulmarg and ADT, Leh on two occasions was Rs10,15624,981466 and $7389 .
Meanwhile according to reports Tourism Department has spent whopping Rs 1.7 crore on a five minute tourism promotion documentary on Kashmir.
Sources also claimed that the department has also failed to woo travelers from southern India. "Though we receive a large number of tourists from Maharashtra and Gujarat, followed by cities like Delhi and Kolkata, the number of tourists arriving from southern India is yet not very high," sources maintained. |
