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| | | Snowfall fails to bring cheers to house boat owners, hoteliers
Early Times Report
Srinagar: The fresh snowfall may have brought cheer on the faces of those associated with tourism sector, but House boat and hotel owners say that the tourist arrival has remained minimal and as a reason they are faced with a variety of problems.
The popular houseboats (Shikara) which were usually booked in advance three or four years back by February, are today lying vacant with almost no bookings for this season.
"The work is quite less as compared to last year. Earlier, there used to be big crowd arriving here during these months. But it is not so any more. This time we have hardly seen one to two tourist vehicles coming here. Of course, the State Government says that tourists will come, but no work is going on," Abdul Rashid, one eatery owner, told Press Bureau of India.
Tourism is a source of livelihood to thousands of people in Kashmir - from hoteliers and house boat owners to the Shikarawallas and craftsmen. But right now every body is facing the heat as fewer tourists have arrived in the Valley during the last nine months.
"Tourism is one of the major activities for stimulating the state's economy. About 45percent of the state's population is directly or indirectly connected with this activity. Tourism develops international relations, earns a lot of foreign exchange and contributes substantially to the gross domestic product," Mohammd Azim Toman, Chairperson House boat association told PBI.
"But for the last one year our business has received a setback , one cant believe but there is only one percent booking of houseboats this year, the flow of tourist has declined drastically after Amaranth land controversy", he adds.
Interestingly, Kashmir is endowed with spectacular scenery. Its gushing rivers, lush green forests and mountains offer tourists many adventures to choose from. Trekking, trans-Himalayan jeep safari, mountaineering, fishing and whitewater rafting are a few examples of the adventure, a tourist can avail. Winter sports have also become a popular attraction for tourists here in the past few years.
"Three to four years back, lot of tourists were coming to Kashmir but after the amaranth land controversy the situation took an ugly turn. We don't know what has happened to them," Mohammed Yaqoob, a houseboat owner, told .
"The Amaranth land controversy and assembly elections have affected our business, now tourists are scared of coming to the place and a shikarawala who used to earn more than Rs.2000 in a day is not able to earn even Rs 200",he adds.
The tourism industry, considered the backbone of Jammu and Kashmir's economy, was one of the worst hit sectors during the last two decades of turmoil in the Valley.
The industry received a severe beating as early as 1990 when the flow of tourists dropped drastically to a few hundred against over a six lakhs in 1986.
Though the sector showed some signs of recovery at least thrice since then, but acts of militants thwarted the revival.
The gradually-reviving industry received its first set-back in 1993 when five tourists from Rajasthan were kidnapped from Dal Lake and killed. This was followed by kidnap of nine Israelis, eight of whom escaped from captivity after killing one of their captors and losing one among them.
In July 1995, seven tourists from the US, Britain, Norway and Germany were abducted from the world famous Pahalgam health resort. While one of them managed to escape, the body of another was found sometime later. The fate of the rest remains unknown, but they are widely believed to be dead.
As the sector was recovering from such setbacks and a large number of tourists had started flocking the valley, the Kargil conflict took place.
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