Hoteliers blame government for sharp dip in tourist flow to state

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, January 4

The state government’s advisory to tourists against visiting Kullu and Manali after heavy snowfall on December 13 and 14 led to a sharp dip in the number of visitors to the state.

Kullu and Manali witnessed a decline of 30-40 per cent in tourist inflow in December while other parts of the state saw a dip of 15-20 per cent as the advisory led to cancellation of bookings, say hoteliers.

The winter tourism season normally commences from December 20, but there is fall of 35-40 per cent in tourist arrival this year even as tourists were wary of visiting Jammu and Kashmir after last year’s devastating floods, vice-president of the Manali Hotelier Association Budhi Singh said.

“The adverse publicity not only affected the tourism industry in Kullu and Manali but even in other parts of the state as the tourists coming from far-off places have no idea of the geographical conditions and tourist rush was comparatively less this year,” said RK Garg, owner of Timber Trail near Parwanoo.

It was a peak winter tourism season, but it took the authorities more than a week to restore water and power supply in Kullu-Manali. The government did not issue a revised advisory and tourists wanting to come to Himachal had to cancel their plans, said a Shimla hotelier.

Hoteliers said media reports played a deterrent for the tourists. The media should have verified the position on the ground and informed the people accordingly, said Bharat Ratan Thakur, a Manali resident. He said about 90 per cent of bookings were cancelled in Manali. Cancellation of flights due to bad weather conditions from December 26 also added to the woes of the tourism industry in Manali as flights operated only on January 1 and 2 and it was again suspended till January 11.

He said earlier Manali used to receive six to eight feet of snow but the need to issue such an advisory never arose as local administration was ready to meet any eventually.

President of the Tourism Industry Stakeholders’ Welfare Association MK Seth said there was a decline of 30 per cent in tourist inflow and the industry suffered heavy losses. “Now, the only hope is snowfall and long weekends,” he said.

Sources in the state Tourism Department said last year as many as 11,48,296 tourist, including 11,11,014 Indians and 37,282 foreigners, visited the state in December with 3,26,862 tourist visiting Shimla and 2,15,724 visiting Kullu. “We do not have the exact number of tourist visiting the state in December 2014 yet, but there was a decline as state-run hotels were also not packed to capacity even during the peak season,” said a Tourism Department official.