A record 2.5 lakh tourists visited Kashmir in the first two months of this year. Last year, over 1.6 lakh visitors were in the valley over these two months. The rising inflow of tourists follows the record number of arrivals last year. Around 27 lakh tourists, including 3.65 lakh Amarnath yatris and over ten thousand foreigners, visited Kashmir during 2022. The Jammu and Kashmir administration anticipates a 15-20 percent year-on-year increase in visitors to the Union Territory in 2023 and has planned 75 alternative destinations to lower footfalls at the most popular attractions.
Bollywood’s return to Kashmir has also added to the prevailing atmosphere of normalcy and hopefully will bring more holiday makers to the Valley. Currently, actors Ranvir Singh and Alia Bhatt are shooting for Karan Johar’s film Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani in Valley. Last year, filmmaker Onir shot in Gurez, close to the Line of Control in north Kashmir, for his Chahiye Thoda Pyaar movie.
The tourism department has said that an advertising campaign across major Indian cities and the opening of new destinations have helped. The UT government has also increased the options for tourists by developing more resorts. For example, Aharbal, Yusmarg, Tosamaidan, Gurez, historic old city in Srinagar, are finding a prominent place on the tourist map of Kashmir. These places need further development of tourist infrastructure and also wider publicity for people to visit. So current year could be hoped to see more tourists visiting the Valley.
The growing tourism has gone a long way to shore up Kashmir economy and bring back employment lost to the successive security and Covid-19 lockdown. The boom the sector is also having a positive spillover effect on other sectors. The sector forms 6.8 percent of Kashmir’s GDP and employs over two million people.
Over the last two years, a combination of factors has made the tourism boom possible: There is now a perception across the country that after the revocation of Article 370 J&K has been fully integrated into India and finally ushered in peace – which it no doubt has. The union territory, a recent MHA report said, witnessed “a 54 percent reduction in terrorist incidents, a 22 percent drop in recruitment of militants and 84 percent decline in the deaths of security forces.” In real terms, the militancy related violence has decreased from 417 incidents in 2018 to 229 in 2021 while the number of slain security personnel dropped from 91 in 2018 to 42 in 2022. Here’s hoping that this trend continues this year as well, a prerequisite for not only bringing more tourists to the valley but also helping the growth of the local economy overall.
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