Note ban hits Munnar tourism

KOTTAYAM: The tourist flow to Munnar has declined owing to demonetisation and the closure of the Eravikulam national park during the calving season of the Neelagiri Tahr. The Eravikulam park was closed from the first week of February till the beginning of March. "There has been a decline in the number of foreign tourists coming to Munnar in the last three months due mainly to demonetisation," said Mr Ansil Correa, a tour operator of Kestrel Adventures.

There has been fall in the bookings for various tour programmes in the past three months. "In January, there was a daily foreign tourist inflow of 20-30 , which came down to 10- 15 in February," he told DC. The major areas of tourist interests include the tea estates, tea museum, tea factories, Mattupetty dam along with the boating there. The tourists also go for adventure activities like trekking, camping, rock climbing, cycling, marathon and polaris bike riding.

There are no bookings for the adventure tours for the monsoon months of June, July and August this year unlike in 2016 when there was booking from Germany, France and Italy," said Mr R. Mohan, director of the Munnar- based Track Finders Adventures. Many among the tour operators from New Delhi were yet to give him the money for the packages they had availed of. The folllowing is the figures of the tourist inflow availbale with the state tourism directorate, Thiruvananthapuram.