Tour operators look to divert tourists from J&K to Himachal, Uttarakhand

Tour operators across India are looking to divert tourists, who had planned to spend their summer vacation in Jammu and Kashmir, to Himachal and Uttarakhand. Sources say that the hotel owners in Himachal are getting phone calls from tour operators in New Delhi, Mumbai and Gujarat to explore the possibility of diverting tourists from Jammu and Kashmir to Himachal.

The sources say that generally during summer months, groups of tourists from southern states come to the hill states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal and Uttarakhand. After the terror attack in Pahalgam in which 26 persons were killed, thousands of tourists have cancelled their plans to spend summer vacation in the state.

A tour operator said that since a lot of planning was done to book air and railway tickets or buses for groups of tourists, he could not afford to cancel tours, which would otherwise cause him huge financial losses. As tourists were cancelling bookings in Jammu and Kashmir hill stations, the tour operators were trying to divert them to Himachal and Uttarakhand, he added.

Ashwani Bamba, president of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Kangra, said that many tour operators had called hoteliers in Dharamsala and Manali to divert groups of tourists from Jammu and Kashmir to Himachal. The killing of tourists by terrorists in Pahalgam was a barbaric act and the Hotel and Restaurant Associations of Himachal had condemned it and demanded strictest possible action on the perpetrators of the inhuman act, he added.

Bamba said that though the tour operators were trying to divert tourists to Himachal, the impact of the terror attack on the summer season in the state would be known in due course.

Deepak, another tour organiser in Kangra, said that the killing of tourists in Pahalgam had stirred the conscience of the country. “Everyone related with the tourism industry is shocked over the killings. After normalcy was restored in Jammu and Kashmir, many tourists from Punjab and Himachal were going to that state. After the Pahalgam killings, the tour operators in the region have decided against taking any bookings for Jammu and Kashmir till the situation normalises. Himachal is a safe tourist destination and we shall be guiding tourists to visit the state instead of Jammu and Kashmir," he added.

Himachal Tribune