Jehangir Rashid
Srinagar, Aug 23: The India Tourism campaign launched by the Union Ministry for Tourism and Culture under the Incredible India programme in luring the foreigners to re-visit Kashmir valley has started yielding positive results as more than 24,000 foreigners have visited the Kashmir valley during this year.
These foreign tourists have visited Kashmir despite the adverse travel advisories issued by foreign countries including United States of America and United Kingdom.
According to the figures available with the Department of Tourism, 24, 404 foreigners have visited Kashmir valley from January 1, 2012 to August 21, 2012. At the same time 9, 75, 121 domestic tourists visited Kashmir.
Director Tourism-Kashmir, Talat Parvez told Excelsior that the message has gone out loud and clear to the outside world that Kashmir is a safe tourist destination adding efforts of both the Union Ministry of Tourism and Culture and Department of Tourism in attracting foreigners to Kashmir have started yielding results.
The monthly break up of the tourists visiting Kashmir valley indicate that highest number of foreign tourists visiting the Kashmir valley was in April followed by March, July, February, January, August, June and May.
While as 4, 395 foreign tourists visited Kashmir in April, 3, 623 foreigners in March. In July, 3, 152 foreigners visited Kashmir followed by 3,062 in February, 2, 894 in January, 2, 489 in June, 2, 480 (first 21 days of August) and 2, 309 in May.
As far as arrival of domestic tourists to Kashmir valley during this year is concerned around five lakh tourists visited Kashmir valley in the summer months of July and June. However, the inflow dipped during the first three weeks of August as holy month of Ramadhan was in progress.
In June, 2, 45, 014 domestic tourists visited Kashmir valley while as 2, 35,041 visited during July. In May, 1, 97, 215 domestic tourists visited Kashmir while as this was followed by arrival of 1, 51, 842 domestic tourists in April.
In March, 71, 091 domestic tourists visited Kashmir while as 41, 917 domestic tourists visited Kashmir valley during the first three weeks of August. In January, 30, 480 tourists visited Kashmir valley while as February accounted for the low number of tourists visiting Kashmir valley with the number being 26, 925.
“The trend as far as revival of foreign tourism to Kashmir is picking up. It is heartening to note that grand children of foreigners who visited Kashmir many years back visited the valley during this year. This did not happen last year and hopefully more positive results would emerge with the passage of time,” said Talat.
Talat exuded confidence that the inflow of tourists to Kashmir would cross 12 lakhs this year adding that the department expects 10 percent increase over last year’s tourist arrival to Kashmir that stood at more than 11 lakh. He said that Kashmir is the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) when it comes to promotion of India as a favourite tourist destination to the people living in the foreign countries.
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