Record tourist arrivals in Kashmir this year
Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Apr 12: As Kashmir witnesses a tourism boom this spring, Srinagar Airport has made history by handling 102 flights in a single day yesterday with over 15000 arrivals and departures.
The Director Airport Authority of India, Srinagar Airport, Kuldeep Singh said that the airport handled 102 flights yesterday which is a record.
Singh said that yesterday 51 flights landed at Srinagar airport with 7, 305 passengers arriving in Kashmir while an equal number of flights departed with 7, 894 passengers. He said that this is a record as the airport in its history has never handled such a huge number of passengers.
Last month on March 29, the Airport handled 92 flights with 15, 014 arrivals and departures from Srinagar airport.
The buoyancy in the influx of tourists is noteworthy considering that the airport, by its design, can only handle less than 7,000 passengers per day.
The Srinagar airport authority at present has nine parking slots and six more are being added. In total, 15 parking stands will be available for the planes.
Secretary, Tourism, Sarmad Hafeez, told Excelsior that there has been highest ever winter tourism arrivals in Kashmir this winter.
“We had 3.4 lakh tourist arrivals between Jan-March this year. This is highest ever winter tourist arrivals in Kashmir with 1.8 lakh arriving in March only”, he said.
Sarmad said that the department is expecting to break the March record in April.
He attributed the tourism boom to sustained advertising campaign across India and multi-pronged strategy that was adopted to attract more tourists to Kashmir.
“We have opened new tourist destination of Pahalgam, Sonmarg and Doodpathri during this winter”, he said.
“We are adding dozens of lesser-known destinations across Jammu and Kashmir to the tourist itinerary. This will give opportunity to tourists to stay longer here”, he said.
The Tulip Garden which is a major attraction for tourists has so far recorded 3.11 lakh footfalls in the 19 days since it was opened on March 23. This is the highest footfall since it was inaugurated in 2007.
Assistant Floriculture officer Inam-ul-Rehman said that around 3.11 lakh people visited the garden so far including 1.10 lakh tourists.
Last year, 2.25 lakh people had visited the garden before it was closed due to the second wave of COVID-19 outbreak.
The garden has 1.5 million tulips of 68 varieties and colours. It is spread over 30 hectares and situated on the foothills of Zabarwan range.
Kashmir is packed with tourists these days and people find it difficult to get the accommodation. A tourist, Sandeep from Mumbai, booked his ticket along with his family for a Kashmir trip last month. “I have hotel bookings for Pahalgam, Gulmarg and Sonmarg but am unable to get hotel bookings for Srinagar. The first and last night of my trip is at Srinagar but hotels are not available”, he said.
Mohammad Yasin Tuman, Managing Partner Mascot Travels told Excelsior that there is a huge rush of tourists this year. “We have 90 percent hotels occupied in Gulmarg and other tourist destinations,” he said.
“We have a lot of inquiries but there is no accommodation available for high-end tourists. Whatever is available is booked. We also have limited commercial transport services for high end customers”, he said.
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