By: Ahmad Shabir
Anantnag: Despite spurt in Covid-19 cases across the country, the world famous Pahalgam resort witnessed the brisk footfall of tourists in winter for the first time in last several years.
According to local hoteliers, the famed spot witnessed a good influx of tourists this winter.
Earlier, only A class hotels with winter facilities used to operate during winter months in Pahalgam. But this year, many hoteliers, Precious Kashmir spoke to said that both A Class and B Class hotels remained open during winters to welcome the tourists from different parts of the country.
Zubair Ahmad, who owns a local hotel in upper Pahalgam, said that nearly two dozen B class hotels were operational in Pahalgam this winter as the tourists continuously thronged the destination throughout the winter season.
“Only over a dozen A class hotels with facilities used to offer accommodation and other services to tourists in winters in Pahalgam in previous years. This year almost all the low grade hotels offered accommodation to tourists during the winter. We are more than happy that winter tourism in Pahalgam has started picking up by this year,” Zubair said.
He said that he has been getting two to three bookings every day for last three months.
“Though I used to keep my hotel open every year during winter but this year I did a good business. I have at least three rooms occupied every night in my hotel while as in previous years I used to get a booking after several days,” Zubair said.
Officials attributed the promotion of winter tourism in Pahalgam to the campaigning carried out by the tourism department throughout the country besides the week long celebrations from Christmas to New Year.
“Earlier we used to celebrate only the end of new year but this year we kept the celebrations going for a week which helped in promotion of winter tourism at Pahalgam,” an officer of the tourism department said.
According to figures at least 30000 tourists visited Pahalgam in the month of December put of whom 26000 were domestic and over 3000 locals and 69 foreigners.
Similarly, the first week of January saw the arrival of over 5433 tourists.
Though the number of tourist arrivals to Pahalgam in last one month was not available, however, an official said that the number of tourist influx in Pahalgam this winter was more than double the number the tourist resort used to witness in previous years.
