Tourist footfall dips, 70% hotels in upper Dharamsala put up for sale, lease

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, March 9

Declining footfall of tourists since Covid outbreak in 2020 in upper Dharamsala areas like McLeodganj, Bhagsunag and Naddi is forcing many hoteliers to put their properties on sale or lease. As per data collected from hoteliers, about 70 per cent properties in McLeodganj and Bhagsunag are being offered on lease.

Poor road infra big deterrent

• The tourist footfall in the region was down significantly since the pandemic and one of the reasons was poor infrastructure, said Sanjeev Gandhi, general secretary of the Dharamsala hotel and restaurant association
• The roads leading to McLeodganj were in poor shape for many years. Poor condition of roads lead to traffic jams during peak season and tourists get struck for hours in long traffic jams
• Persistent traffic jams during peak season had given a bad name to the region and tourists had started avoiding the region, he added

The hoteliers said lease rates had also come down significantly. The hotels that were given on lease at Rs 3 lakh per room per year were now being offered at just Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh per room per year and still there were few takers. Many hoteliers had put their properties on sale and social media was filled with such advertisements.

Things will improve soon

The government is making plans to bring back national and international tourists to Kangra district. Things will improve as the state government plans will unfold in the coming days. RS Bali, Chairman, HPTDC

Ashwani Bamba, president of the Kangra hotel and restaurant association, said many hotel properties were being offered on sale or lease in McLeodganj and Bhagsunag. He said many properties had turned into non-performing assets (NPAs) during the pandemic period. The owners of these properties were still to come out of bad debts as tourism in the region was not picking up since then.

The people associated with the tourism industry said traffic jams are very common on many roads in the McLeodganj area. Many roads like the Bhagsunag-Indrunag road, Dharamkot-Naddi road and the old camel road have been lying incomplete since the past about seven years and no effort was being made to complete the roads despite representations to the various authorities, they alleged.

Many people were also blaming dipping tourist inflow to the decreased inflow of foreign tourists since the pandemic. McLeodganj, also know as Little Lhasa due to presence of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government, had significant inflow of foreign tourists. Dharamkot, an area of upper Dharamsala was a favourite destination for Israeli tourists. However, since the Covid pandemic and now the Israel war, the number of foreign tourists coming to the area had come to almost naught.