Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, Nov 7: With the United Kingdom agreeing for withdrawal of its negative travel advisory to its citizens regarding their visit to Jammu and Kashmir, the tourism in the trouble torn State is all set for foreign tourism boom as UK is the trend setter in Europe.
According to figures of the tourism Department among 7.5 lakh tourists who visited Kashmir in 1989, a year before the militancy started in State, 65, 000 among them were high end foreigners with majority Britishers.
And 22 years later in 2011, the number of foreign visitors’ nose dived to 25,000 among 19 lakh visitors including Amarnath pilgrims. Majority of among these 25,000 were low end tourists from Malaysia and Thialand.
The major hurdle in bringing foreigners especially Europeans to Kashmir were the negative travel advisories issued by the UK, United State of America and various other European countries.
Former Director Tourism Kashmir, Farooq Ahmad Shah, says that Travel Advisory was the major hurdle in bringing back Kashmir to glory of foreign tourism. “The UK agreeing for withdrawal of negative travel advisory will give big boost to tourism in Kashmir”, opines Shah.
Shah who was Director Tourism for six long years has been to Travel marts across the globe during between 2005 to 2012 says that UK and US negative travel advisory was major hurdle in bringing European tourists to Kashmir.
Shah describes UK’s step as good news for the State. “The Government was pursing it for last many years ultimately we have succeeded”, he said adding “it will change the tourism scenario in the State as Europe will follow suit”.
Shah said that they went to UK Travel mart in 2010. “We persuaded House of Lords during our visit to UK and UK Ambassador and Deputy Ambassador who visited Kashmir last year”, he added.
He says Britishers are traditional travelers to Kashmir. “Prior to 1947, Gulmarg was being called as Britishers’ holiday resort. They used to stay here for months together as it was their home away from home”, he added.
Shah said UK and European skiers, golfers and adventure tourists will visit Kashmir in large numbers as it is cheap and favourite destination for them.
Mohammad Yasin Tuman, Manager Operations Mascot Travels whose family owns palatial Houseboats in famed Nageen lake in Srinagar says: “It is a big news for Tourism industry of the State particularly for houseboat community whose major clientele was European and US tourist prior to 1989.”
Tuman says UK’s step will give flip to tourism in the State. “British had tendency to come back to Kashmir as they are fond of this place. Some have very strong bond with Kashmir as their parents and grand parents were regular visitors of this place”, he adds.
“Some of our British clients who used to visit Kashmir in 1960s and stay at our houseboats have fond memory of this place and now their children are keen to visit Kashmir but negative travel advisory was coming in their way”, said Tuman.
“We tried to bring niche class of tourists from Britain and other European countries since 2006 but all the time they got cancelled due to the adverse travel advisory”, says Tuman.
“For past couple of years word of mouth used to bring some Britishers and Europeans to Kashmir but the number was almost negligent”, says Tuman. He adds that in 2009 Chief Executive Officer of Tesco, Laura Wadegory, who stayed for 14 days in Kashmir sent positive message to the high end visitors in UK and several high end tourists visited Kashmir on her recommendation.
Tuman says that Government has played its part by getting the travel advisory removed. “We are now expecting large number of foreign travelers to come to this place. This will also encourage the other European countries. It will send a message to outside world”, he added.
Pitching for the lifting of travel advisories from the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir, Rauf Ahmad Tramboo, President, Travel Agents Association of Kashmir (TAAK) describes the lifting of UK’s travel advisory as a small step in a right direction.
“Ideally the advisories should have been lifted from the entire State but still a beginning has been made. We are glad that UK has taken this all important decision and hopefully the decision would be extended to the other parts of the State,” says Rauf.
He adds that advisories should also be lifted from the mountains adding that most of the foreign tourists come to Kashmir for trekking and other adventure related activities. He says the whole tourism fraternity is upbeat over the development exuding confidence that more positive steps would follow.
“It is important that countries like Australia, New Zealand and Canada follow suit and revoke the negative travel advisories. Majority of the foreign tourists visiting Kashmir come from these countries. Once advisories are lifted by the Governments of these countries we can expect more inflow of foreign tourists to Kashmir,” says Rauf.
Now the major concern for the Government is the infrastructure. Since 1989 the tourism infrastructure in the State didn’t keep pace with rest of the world due to militancy and uncertainty.
The State lacks the infrastructure that may be a major hurdle in sustaining this sector for high end tourists. The foreign tourists need quality infrastructure which is lacking in State especially in Kashmir valley. Now the bigger challenge for the Government is to develop quality infrastructure to sustain the foreseeable tourism boom.
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