Manali witnesses weekend rush

Abhinav Vashisht

Kullu, March 10

With the improved road connectivity between Chandigarh and Manali due to the new four-lane national highway, the tourist town of Manali is experiencing increased footfall of tourists during the weekends. A large number of tourists thronged Manali during this long weekend.

New NH gives fillip to tourist influx

• The beneficiaries of the tourism industry said earlier it used to take around nine hours to reach Manali from Chandigarh but now it takes only about six hours after the opening of the new national highway
• They said this had given a fillip to the tourist influx, especially during the weekends. They said Manali had become easily accessible for the tourists from Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana

The footfall of tourists has increased at Manali’s tourist places of Solang Nala, Anjani Mahadev and Hamta. Both ends of the Atal Tunnel are covered with snow. The BRO has connected the south portal of the tunnel to Manali, but in view of the condition of the snow covered road, tourists are being sent till Solang Nala only. Tourists will soon be able to enjoy the snow in Sissu, Koksar, Kothi and Gulaba, including the south and north portals of the Atal Tunnel.

Tourism businessmen Chaman and Rohit said around 1,500 tourist vehicles were reaching Solang Nala daily. They said tourists were enjoying adventure activities in the snow. The businessmen of Solang Nala are happy with the improvement in tourism business. The tourists are also enjoying various adventure sports like rafting, paragliding, zip-lining, rock climbing, rappelling, zorbing, skiing, snow slides etc. The mall road in Manali is also witnessing the rush of the tourists.

Manali Hoteliers Association (MHA) president Mukesh Thakur said the influx of tourists was increasing during the weekends. He said generally the hotels were witnessing around 50 per cent occupancy, which further improves during the weekends. Another hotelier Harish said online queries had improved for the upcoming summer season. According to the figures of the Tourism Department, the number of tourists starts increasing in April and May-June is the peak season of the year.

According to the tourism businessmen, the tourism business of Manali has started picking up gradually. The number of tourists is expected to increase further in the coming days. A hotelier Vinay said now the weekend tourism has started gaining pace after the opening of the new Kiratpur-Manali highway. He said travel time to Manali would be further reduced with the opening of the Mandi and Sundernagar bypasses.