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| Tourism Deptt fails to promote new destinations | | Tourism Deptt talks high | | Ishtiyaq Ahmad
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Mar 27: While the Tourism Department talks high that tourist arrivals would surpass 40 lakh this year but the government has failed to promote new destinations in Kashmir over the last two decades.
Director Tourism Kashmir Mahmood Shah recently said that tourist arrivals may surpass four million mark this year. But one fails to understand what prompted him to make such tall claims when the Kashmir tourism has been dependent on few tourist destination while dozens of picturesque places which have a huge potential of promoting tourism have been unexplored so far.
The Director has said Kashmir is receiving about one million tourists every year. "However, this year all indications point out that the footfall may hover around three to four million for which the department of tourism is making all out efforts to cater this rush," Shah has said.
But the ground reality is that Tourism Department despite spending crores of rupees annually on officials to visit various parts of the world for tourism promotion but it has "failed" to bring new tourist destinations on the tourist map and Valley's tourism sector has been confined to few places.
"People across the globe know that there are some tourist destinations like Pahalgam, Gulmarg, Mughal Gardens, Dal Lake, Sonamarg and Tulip Garden but what new tourist destinations have been promoted over the years," a senior official of the Tourism department asked, wishing not to be quoted by name for fear of reprisal. "For the last five years, successive tourism ministers, secretaries, directors, deputy directors and other senior officials had visited dozens of places all across the world and crores of rupees were spent on their travel and accommodation but they have failed to promote any new tourist destination," the official said.
The tourism players have been often flaying the government for its "failure" in developing unexplored destinations which could become an alternative to the existing ones and boost the tourism sector. Authorities on their part have been saying that infrastructure and road connectivity to new tourist destinations is being developed and are being widely promoted.
Besides the existing tourist destinations, it could be seen there is a vast potential of tourism in Kashmir where the destinations have either remained unexplored or are inaccessible due to security reasons or lack of road connectivity.
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 1308765 and 621000 respectively.
The number of tourist arrivals dropped to 1171130 in 2013 and in 2014 their number was 116718. During these two years, the number of Amarnath yatris who visited the Valley was 353969 and 372909 respectively. |
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