Tourist footfall hit as LPG scarcity chokes eateries in Amritsar

The tourist flow to Amritsar has declined by 40 to 50 per cent in the wake of disruption in fuel supply caused by the West Asia conflict. Several confectionery shops, dhabas and eating joints have started closing their operations on certain days in a week to tide over the crisis.

The holy city records a daily footfall of over 1.50 lakh people, including tourists. Its nearly 2,000 hotels, restaurants, dhabas, confectionary shops, sweet shops, tea and coffee joints, besides popular handcarts, make it a big customer of commercial LPG refills.

The city has the maximum number of hotels, including luxury properties, in the entire state.

Harinder Singh, chairman of Federation of Hotels and Guest Houses Association, said about 60 per cent rooms in nearly 2,000 hotels — available at different price points across the city — were lying unoccupied due to the prolonged war in Iran.

Otherwise, the current period was known as the peak tourist season in the area, drawing the maximum number of tourists from western and central parts of the country, he added.

He said people were hesitant to take leisure trips in these uncertain times, while families and eatery owners had been struggling to procure LPG refills. A vendor selling tea arranged a refill after shelling out Rs 4,000, forcing him to increase the cost of a cup of tea to Rs 25.

Another shopkeeper serving fresh meals has opted to keep his operations closed till he arranges a refill at a reasonable price.

Hotelier Surinder Singh said, every year, the tourism sector — considered the backbone of the city’s economy — suffered economic jolts not of stakeholders’ own making, yet the government didn’t bother to extend any kind of help to the industry, which offered employment to a cross-section of people, from vendors to hoteliers.

It had to undergo rough patches when sales went down while expenses remained intact, he added.

Pertinently, after floods ravaged parts of Punjab in September 2025, the tourism industry here incurred heavy losses. The industry was also hit on account of border tensions between India and Pakistan, starting from the Pahalgam massacre. Iran’s defiant stance against the deadline threat issued by the US has forced people serving freshly cooked eatables to either scale down their operations or temporarily close these, besides shifting to induction, infrared or traditional cooktops.

The holy city witnesses a large floating population, including tourists, which crosses the 1.50 lakh mark daily.

To serve them, the city has the maximum number of hotels in Punjab, including luxury properties.

The owner of an eatery near Company Garden, which houses the summer palace of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, said, due to the non-arrangement of an LPG refill, he had to keep his outlet closed.

Many ‘halwais’ and confectioners have stopped preparing sweet dishes, which require higher amounts of LPG. Some of them have started preparing coffee and tea on induction cooktops to save LPG.