Covid surge adds to Dharamsala tourism pain yet again

lit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, April 13

The rise in Covid cases has again cast its shadow on the tourism industry in Dharamsala. Hoteliers lament that most of their bookings for April have been cancelled.

Ravi Sharma, general manager of a hotel in lower Dharamsala, talking to The Tribune, said he had bookings from Maharashtra for April. However, most of these have been cancelled due to the surge in cases. “We are hoping that the Covid wave will subside and the months of May and June will bring in tourists from adjoining states to the region,” he said.

Kanwar Singh, in-charge of Moti Mehal, a restaurant in Dharamsala, said the business had gone down. “We are not making enough sales to cover the expenses. Earlier, local customers were coming, but now, they have stopped coming.”

Many eating joints in Dharamsala have closed down due to the Covid fear. Navdeep, who used to run a fastfood joint, said, “We continued the business last year with the hope that this year, things would be better. However, with the increase in cases, it seems that the summer season will be no different. It was becoming difficult for me to pay the rent for the shop, so I decided to close it down,” he said.

Though small and medium hotels in the region are suffering, sources told The Tribune that high-end hotels were still doing brisk business. The owner of one such hotel said the increasing cases in Delhi and Mumbai had created more business for them. Many corporate families and officials were moving to the hills. Generally, these high-end clients used to go to foreign countries for holidays. Since foreign travel was restricted, they were now coming to hill destinations in India. Since Dharamsala had the best air connectivity in Himachal, it was receiving many such tourists, he said.