The prolonged gunfight in the forests of the health resort of Kokernag in South Kashmir is bad news for tourism stakeholders who were expecting record breaking arrival of foreign tourists here during the current season.
Despite advisories by many European countries and USA, foreign tourists have started coming to Kashmir valley and there has been a 700% increase in the arrivals during the current year as compared to the previous year so far.
Globally known chef Daniel Humm was recently in Kashmir during the last week of August. Humm is a well-known chef in New York and has praised Kashmir’s beauty and tourism potential. Humm was not the only person of importance who visited Kashmir in the recent past. After the tourism working group meeting of G20 in Srinagar, many foreign countries diluted their advisories to their citizens to visit Kashmir.
Travel agents and Kashmir hoteliers are worried after the ongoing gunfight in the forests of Kokernag that they were expecting a lot of foreign tourists especially during the autumn and coming winter season.
Abdul Samad Zaindari, who runs a houseboat in Dal Lake, told this reporter that the media should not go for the negative publicity of Kashmir after this gunfight as there has been peace and calm for several years now. “We were expecting some European tourists who were interested in going for trekking into the hill of Aru in Pahalgam in the Anantnag district and they may cancel their trip to Kashmir now,” Zaindari said.
It is in place to mention that travel agents were busy in giving fresh packages for the foreign tourists to visit Kashmir due to the improved security situation especially after the holding of G20 tourism working group meeting in Srinagar this summer. The J&K Tourism Department recently released the figures and said that 25,000 foreign tourists visited Kashmir this year so far.
Secretary Tourism J&K said that a lot of foreign tourists who visited Kashmir in the recent past were from Thailand, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore and USA. He said that this summer a lot of tourists came from the UK, France, Germany and Israel. “As the peace and stability returns to Kashmir valley, the influx of foreign tourists increases a lot” Secretary Tourism further said.
The Kashmir Houseboat Owners Association has been welcoming foreign tourists and was very upbeat when recently Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said that the US State Department is likely to remove the negative advisory to its citizens regarding their visit to Kashmir. The tourism stakeholders are very worried after the Kokernag encounter, especially the way television channels have been reporting about the incident for the past three days.
“Lot of domestic and foreign tourists used to visit offbeat destinations in the forests and also in the remote villages of Kashmir valley. The three-day long gunfight near a picnic spot of Kokernag will frighten the tourists, especially the way media is reporting about the incident,” said one of the office bearers of Kashmir Travel Agents Association.
They are still hoping that both domestic and foreign tourists will ignore such incidents and come to Kashmir the way they have been coming to Kashmir from the past two years. Record-breaking arrival of tourists has surely ignited hopes and enthusiasm among the stakeholders of this industry as they have seen decades of lean period due to the turmoil here.