Government To Promote Offbeat J&K Destinations To Elude Overcrowding at Popular Resorts

 Srinagar: With the influx of tourists in the scenic Kashmir surpassing all previous records, its popular resorts have been overcrowded and, therefore, the government is planning to promote more offbeat destinations by making them accessible and creating necessary infrastructure.

Stating this, Union minister of Culture and Tourism Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said that soaring plains temperatures have driven millions to overcrowded hill stations (in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh) and in view of this the government has initiated measures to promote the offbeat destinations.

About Kashmir, he said, “The popular tourist destinations are witnessing a huge rush of visitors, and it is therefore necessary to divert both domestic and foreign tourists towards virgin and offbeat destinations.”

The Centre, he said, is committed to provide all required support to improve road and mobile connectivity to the less explored destinations across the country and has asked all the states including the J&K administration to come up with a roadmap to improve infrastructure, network connectivity, and roads to make the less-explored destinations more accessible to both domestic and foreign tourists.

Mr. Shekhawat who was talking to reporters after presiding over the 25th Annual National Convention of Tourist Guides Federation of India held at the lakeside Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre here also said that the government has started online modules to enhance skills of guides even as new training programs are being set-up for the new guides.

Earlier while speaking at the event, Mr Shekhawat said that India has witnessed a boom in domestic tourism post the Covid-19 pandemic and the tourism industry as a whole needs to prepare itself for the growing volume of tourists across the country.

“In times of advanced technologies and AI, customers have all relevant information on their screens in a span of a few minutes and the stakeholders of the tourism sector need to be prepared to meet all demands of tourists,” he said, adding that service providers have to be ready to deliver other than what is available on internet.

The minister said that the tourism industry has undergone a paradigm shift and people are migrating from monumental tourism to experiential tourism. He added that the Ministry of Tourism has introduced changes in policy under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to meet the challenges of the current times.

Talking about the factors that affect tourist activity, he said that tourism is the first casualty of economic slowdown and things like recession and geopolitical tensions badly affect the sector. “The growth of economic activity and phenomena like eradication of poverty and growth of the middle class have a positive impact on tourism. The pressure on the tourism sector is going to be immense in the coming times as India is poised to be the third largest economy in the world,” he said, adding that all those associated with the sector will need to pull up their socks in order to deal with the situation.

He asserted that India has everything to offer to tourists and should no longer be a seasonal destination. “There is a need to target inbound tourists to meet this demand and inputs and feedback from the local players will help a great deal in achieving this”, he said.

Talking about tourism in Kashmir, the minister said that the region has witnessed a more than 15 percent increase in the number of footfalls since the end of the pandemic. He made a mention of lavender cultivation in south Kashmir and said that more than 2.5 million people have visited the Valley in the recent past just to catch a glimpse of this.