J&K goes full throttle

The UT welcomed more than 2,60,000 tourists this year after re-opening, which bodes well for the destination that has largely depended on tourism. It is now promoting offbeat destinations and has planned B2B roadshows towards the end of 2021 with a budget that is 4X from the previous year.

Hazel Jain

A three-team delegation from the Department of Tourism, Jammu & Kashmir government was in Mumbai recently to meet with key tour operators as well as members from the film fraternity. Dr GN Itoo, Director Tourism, Jammu & Kashmir, said, “We are here to build confidence among the trade and promote little-known destinations in the UT. The J&K government has put tourism on top priority. As a result, the promotional budget has been enhanced manifold from this financial year – it is now four times over the previous one.”

Talking about funds, Itoo says, “We took a calculated risk to restart promoting tourism in J&K and luckily it was a good move. Tourist traffic has picked up very well, particularly adventure tourism from Maharashtra and Gujarat. We’ve also had good demand for offbeat destinations and come up with a plan to promote them. For the 75th Independence Day celebrations, we will promote 75 offbeat destinations such as Gurez and the Bangas Valley. These places have not been promoted much, but now we will hold some mega festivals, to attract more tourists. Apart from this, the tourism department will conduct a week-long physical festival from October 23-29, 2021 including Houseboat Festival, Sufi Festival, Literary Festival, etc.”

Concern for tourists

Itoo claims that the UT has already welcomed approximately 2,60,000 tourists since January 2021, despite the fact that the destination was completely shut down for a couple of months. Tourists need negative RT-PCR test 48 hours prior to arrival, even if they are fully vaccinated. However, for those who don’t have this can take a rapid antigen test. Majority of tourism workforce in the UT is vaccinated. “As on date, almost 95 per cent of them are fully vaccinated including taxi drivers, shikara operators and hotel staff. Jammu & Kashmir is completely safe for tourists,” Itoo says.  So far, his team has travelled to Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Chennai and Delhi that are the main markets. “We have plans to conduct roadshows soon. As border restrictions ease, we will start promoting in the international markets as well. We have already planned collaborations with the MoT for any tourism event that they will participate abroad. Until then we will continue to have virtual conferences with our key partners abroad who are eager to visit J&K. We have a lot of experience in handling tourists. But when we started promoting tourism again, we did not expect so much traffic of tourists. Fortunately, from March onwards, the issues have now been streamlined,” Itoo adds.