A G20 meeting would be one of the major international events to be held in Kashmir and will bring fresh focus to its beauty and tourism potential.
Srinagar: The proposal to hold a G-20 summit meeting in Kashmir and Ladakh has created a flutter and has shown the aims of the government to introduce Kashmir at the international level.
The proposal is to hold preparatory meetings for the G-20 summit in 2023 in Jammu and Kashmir. The J&K administration has already constituted a 5-member committee of senior bureaucrats to coordinate the G-20 summit meetings to be held in Kashmir valley.
This would be one of the major international events to be held in Kashmir and will bring a fresh focus on its beauty and tourism potential.Now, the J&K Tourism Department is hosting a golf tournament in Srinagar which started from 5July. As many as 88 reputed golfers, many of them from the southern states, are part of this tournament in Srinagar.One of the oldest golf clubs in India, the Addicts Golfing Society, is holding this tournament along with the J&K government. Kashmir already has three international standard golf courses in Gulmarg, Pahalgam and Srinagar.
Apart from having the golf courses, all the three places have the infrastructure to hold international business conferences. In the vicinity of the Royal Spring Golf Course of Srinagar is the SKICC which has the potential to hold huge international business conferences.
“If the G-20 summit meeting is held in Srinagar and Leh, it would be a big boost to international tourism, especially with the arrival of a creamy layer of tourists here,” said Nazir Ahmad who runs a travel agency and has a lot of hope from the current tourism season in Kashmir. He said that the bookings and the rush of Amarnath Yatra have already brought them out of the red and they have witnessed such a tourist season after decades in Kashmir.
The ongoing golf tournament at Royal Spring Golf Course of Srinagar will provide the window of opportunity to hold international golf tournaments in Srinagar. Secretary Tourism Sarmad Hafeez told this newspaper that Kashmir will emerge as the golfing capital of India and has the potential to hold international golf tournaments in future.He said that his department is working hard on the ground and in the coming months, they expect more golf tournaments in Kashmir especially at places like Pahalgam and Gulmarg.
Aimed at huge footfall of tourists in Kashmir, the J&K Tourism Department has simplified the registration of houses of common people as home stay, paying guest houses.In the recent past, many stakeholders of tourism have said that they have no rooms to book in Kashmir, prompting the government to encourage people to register their houses as home stay and paying guest houses.
Sarmad Hafeez, Secretary Tourism, said that Kashmir is witnessing unprecedented tourist footfall this season. He said that now the government has already added 75 new tourist destinations and will try to promote home stays at these places to promote local culture, cuisine and handicrafts.He said already many youth have registered their homes and by a proper government notification recently he has created a hassle-free registration with minimum formalities.