COVID strikes again, tourism affected

Tourism and tourism related activities are among the frontal areas getting adversely impacted by the scare of the COVID virus as witnessed during the last two waves of the dreaded virus which took the shape of a horrible pandemic. Tourism had started picking up and thus getting revived as after the second wave , the overall position improving a lot , all modes of travel operating almost with full capacity , Jammu and Kashmir regions were humming with tourism related activities. As many as over 2.80 lakh tourists mostly from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata etc had visited Kashmir during the two months of November and December alone last year. Expectedly, the number would have gone much high during the current season had the third wave of COVID not struck Jammu and Kashmir like most parts of the country.
In other words, in Kashmir , tourist footfall had increased to a satisfactory level and even right at the advent of winter period hotels in famous resorts in Kashmir especially connected with winter sports activities were running full . However, they are now facing spate of cancellations . Though the peak of the current wave in the opine of the experts is yet to occur, yet more than 30 percent hotel bookings in Kashmir are reported to have been cancelled .
Likewise in Jammu, though the pilgrimage to famous shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi is, as on date not adversely affected but the number of pilgrims is far from the usual expected number which again related to hotels and associate activities result in their getting adversely hit. Since the surge in daily caseload in respect of the third wave of COVID is led by Jammu and Srinagar respectively and Jammu being the connecting even halting station for tourists to Kashmir valley, Jammu Hotels and related business are expected to suffer more. It is hoped that the ”duration” of the current third wave may be shorter than the first two waves so that tourism related business picks up again in Jammu and Kashmir