Affected tourism in snowless Kashmir

The large scale cancellation of advance bookings in hotels and houseboats by the tourists, due to no snowfall is badly hitting the tourism sector.

The hotel and houseboat owners besides thousands of other people associated with tourism are facing losses due to these cancellations. This is happening after Kashmir was booming with heavy rush of visitors during the last several years.

Records were broken year after year. This winter also thousands of tourists from different parts of country and foreign countries visited Kashmir. Thousands more were expected in coming days and coming weeks.

Snow is always a major attraction for most of the visitors in Kashmir. Since there is no snowfall till now, it caused a disappointment among the tourists, planning their visits here. Subsequently, they cancelled their advance bookings.

The scenario may continue till Kashmir will have the first snowfall of the season. When a snowfall occurs surely it will bring smiles back on the faces. This is not for the first time that Kashmir is witnessing dry spell in winter.

It is being expected that snowfall will occur this winter also and next winters will too have snowfall. But the impact of dry spell was felt stronger this time because of the way it hit the tourism sector. The dry spell has also caused concern among the people, associated with agriculture and horticulture.

They fear that if the dry spell continues, there can be shortage of irrigation water in summer. Even some experts fear scarcity of drinking winter also. The authorities must take measures, which can help the people in such situations.

With the dry spell affecting tourism sector, the stakeholders should think how tourists can be motivated to visit Kashmir even in absence of snow. Steps must be taken in this direction.  The stakeholders must see what  can be done, and that can be worked-out.