Holidayers bypass North to Kerala, Goa, Sikkim

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 19

The North Indians, who have been frequent travellers and destination explorers, are preferring Rajasthan, Goa, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim over Himachal Pradesh and J&K. Reason: Infrastructure bottlenecks in Himachal and unrest in J&K.

This is adversely affecting the tourism sector in North. The overall size of the tourism industry in North is over Rs 3,000 crore and is growing at 16-20% annually.

“North India has an immense potential, but poor connectivity is proving a stumbling block in capitalising its full potential. Going by the bookings, hotel bookings are more or less same as compared to last year in Himachal Pradesh’s popular destinations like Shimla and Manali, said Grand Travel Planners managing director Umesh Kapur.

He said ongoing road construction to Shimla and bad road to Manali discourage tourists. The discontinuation of Dubai and Bangkok flights from Chandigarh has also impacted the inflow of tourists to the northern region.

The high-end tourists prefer overseas destinations such as Dubai, Mauritius, Singapore, Malaysia, Middle-East, Australia, Vietnam and Bangkok. Since December-January period is the peak season, popular destinations like Bangkok are costlier than the domestic circuit which is otherwise cheaper during the summer season.

Tour operators in J&K said the state receives footfall of an average level but not to the level which it had seen in the previous years.

Though the Tourism Department of J&K is taking many steps to hardsell its popular destinations, the tour operators said negative perception of the tourists was restricting the growth of the tourism industry.

“The tourism in J&K has gone down in the past couple of years due to negative perception. When people think of Kashmir, they only think of disturbances and commotion. As a result, despite the fact that the state has a vast tourism potential, it is finding it difficult to convert enquiries into bookings,” said Zahoor Qari, chairman, J&K chapter of the Travel Agents Association of India.

He said Gulmarg had received maximum bookings in the state. “The hotel occupancy will be around 50% which is at par with the last tourist season,” he said.

On the one hand, travel agents are suffering due to less arrival of tourists in the North, on the other hand, they are facing stiff competition from online portals. “This is beyond doubt that the industry suffered initially from online travel portals, but now the traditional travel agents are focusing more on service offerings to the consumers,” said Baljeet Singh Shergill, managing director, Shergill Travels.