Excelsior Correspondent
KATRA, Nov 13: Hotel & Restaurant Association Katra representatives, led by its president Rakesh Wazir, held an interaction with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and listed some suggestions on promoting tourism in Jammu and Kashmir.
While interacting with the Chief Minister, who was accompanied by Dy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, MoS Tourism Priya Sethi, Secretary Tourism Farooq Shah, Director Tourism Sushma Chauhan and others, Rakesh Wazir said that the biggest task at the moment is to remove the notion among minds of the people that atmosphere was not conducive for Tourists here. “Events like Navratra Festival and the India Travel Mart (ITM) will prove to be major Tourism booster,” he added.
Wazir explained that Vaishno Devi ji, all the tourist places of Jammu region, Ladakh and even some places of Kashmir region were not disturbed by the recent unrest in Valley but due to media hype all over world these places too got severely affected and a major publicity campaign through different medium will bring back the Tourism of the State on track.
He further said that with the recent turmoil, even major film units which had planned their shootings in Kashmir valley, had shifted to neighbouring States like Himachal Pradesh etc as the J&K could not convince them that these shootings could be done at other peaceful beautiful locations like Patnitop, Sanasar, Bhaderwah etc. Since the recent aggressive publicity move of the Government will bring all those tourists, Film units and people back to the State, the State needs to carry it farward even with more thrust, he added.
Rakesh Wazir was accompanied by the Association chairman Shyam Lal Kesar, vice presidents Vivek Sharma, Ajay Kotwal, members Aashiq Bhatt, Sunny Sambyal and others.
Kesar appealed that the major achievement in Tourism can be achieved only if we are able to divert the one crore tourists visiting Vaishno Devi ji every year to other parts of the State.
Mehbooba Mufti listened to the representatives very patiently and said that all the views and suggestions putforth by the Association will be considered sympathetically.
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