Tourism woes

Tourism Industry has been suffering from the past several years especially post-Burhan Wani killing on July 8 2016. There have been lot of efforts by the State and the Central Governments to bring this industry out of the present mess, but little worked on the ground. The fact of the matter remains that there is very low tourism in Kashmir in the past several years. This is the July month of 2019 and the arrivals to Srinagar are very low. According to the tourism players of Kashmir they have not seen such a low tourism in Kashmir in the past three decades. They claim that even during the peak of militancy in early nineties they used to get lot of tourists even the foreigners.

What is ailing the tourism industry in Kashmir? Why the government efforts are failing to get back the tourists to Kashmir Valley? Is the Central Government really serious to bring the tourism industry out of present shadows? Has the Central Government made any new policy which will help the tourist traffic to flow back to Kashmir Valley?

There is a strong belief in Kashmir that the present dispensation at New Delhi is not interested in tourist flow in Kashmir. This perception is only growing as even the Amarnath yatries are not being allowed to move through the cities of Srinagar and Jammu during the yatra days. Owing to the security reasons, these yatries are being brought under the security escorts to the Baltal and Pahalgam routes and after the darshan at the holy cave of Amarnath they are moved back in the security conveys through the bye-passes to back to Jammu.

In such an atmosphere even the Amarnath yatries are not being allowed to spend few days in Srinagar city to enjoy the summers and go back to their respective cities. There has been no practical effort by the authorities to bring back tourism to Kashmir, is the feeling of most of the tourism players of Kashmir.