Discrepancies, Data and the Myth of Kashmir's Tourism ‘Boost': An RTI Raises More Questions

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Discrepancies, Data and the Myth of Kashmir's Tourism 'Boost': An RTI Raises More Questions
Jehangir Ali
32 minutes ago
An RTI activist has alleged that data disclosed by the tourism department and the government-run development authorities that are responsible for independently managing tourist destinations in Kashmir are marred by errors.
FILE IMAGE. Tourists lined up at a Gondola cable car station, in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, at Gulmarg in Baramulla district, Jammu & Kashmir, Thursday, April 24, 2025. Photo: PTI
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Srinagar: A right to information query has found that only 10% of the purported tourist footfall in Jammu and Kashmir since the reading down of Article 370 was for the Kashmir Valley, leading to questions on claims of the restoration of normalcy in the area and queries on the methods in which such numbers are collected.
As many as 9.47 crore tourists visited Jammu and Kashmir, the Union government had earlier said.
In response to the RTI query by Srinagar-based transparency activist M.M. Shuja, the tourism department of Kashmir has stated that 92,80,199 tourists – 1,40,577 of them foreigners – visited the Kashmir Valley in the six years since 2019, the year of the Article 370 move.
According to the department's public information officer, the number of tourists who visited the Kashmir valley in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 was 5,65,532, 41,267, 6,65,814, 23,10,309, 22,10,497 and 29,86,780 respectively.
However, the Union government's own Economic Survey 2024-25 puts the figures at 6,65,777, 26,73,442, 31,55,835 and 34,98,702 in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 respectively.
The Union government thus records over 18 lakh more tourists from 2021 to 2024 than the tourism department of the J&K government, which is under its direct control.
In March this year, a report in the Rajya Sabha by a parliamentary standing committee stated that 9.47 crore tourists arrived in Jammu and Kashmir from 2019 to 2024, of whom around 8.5 crore seem to have confined their visit to the Jammu region only.
Of these, a significant number appear to have visited the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine. According to official data, more than 4.33 crore devotees visited the shrine in the six years since 2019 – a figure which is likely to also include a good number of locals.
The Kashmir valley's low share in Jammu and Kashmir's annual tourist footfall holds significance as the BJP-led Union government has repeatedly attempted to link the numbers with the restoration of normalcy in the Union territory following the reading down of Article 370.
Speaking with The Wire, Shuja, the RTI activist, alleged that the data disclosed by the tourism department and the government-run development authorities that are responsible for independently managing tourist destinations in Kashmir are marred by errors.
Methods
In a query about the methodology used for counting tourists at the Srinagar airport and the national highway – the only all-weather surface link that connects the valley with the rest of the country – the department stated that the final figure was 'recorded manually by the dedicated tourist police headed by Deputy Director Tourism Enforcement'.
Shuja said that there are flaws in this strategy, claiming that the total number includes local residents of the valley who may be travelling for reasons such as study, healthcare, business or leisure, as well as the floating population of around four to five lakh migrant workers who travel to Kashmir every year.
'The tourism department passes off the number of daily arrivals at the Srinagar airport as the total number of tourists, without excluding the locals and security personnel who visit Kashmir for reasons other than tourism. When I asked the officials about this, they had no answer,' claimed Shuja.
He also said that the method used to count tourists arriving in Kashmir by passenger cabs or buses via the national highway was flawed for the same reason.
'The number of passengers that can fit into buses and cabs crossing the Jawahar Tunnel into Kashmir is presented as the number of tourists. While it may help to present a rosy picture of tourism, the absence of factual data will hinder the long-term growth of the sector', Shuja said.
The RTI activist also alleged that these discrepancies appear in data released by the development authorities that oversee some of Kashmir's most popular tourist destinations.
Citing the official figures revealed by the Sonamarg Development Authority (SDA) in Ganderbal district, he said that there are 1,270 rooms in all the private and government establishments and hotels in this central Kashmir health resort, which figures among the valley's top five tourist destinations.
More discrepancies
Responding to an RTI query by Shuja, the SDA stated that 8,90,874 tourists visited Sonamarg in 2024. However, the authority left the query unanswered about the mechanism it adopted to count tourists.
Shuja claimed that if all rooms available in Sonamarg were to be occupied on all days of the year, the total number would come to 4,63,550 tourists in 2024.
'If the number is doubled to two tourists per room, even then the figure of 9,27,100 would suggest that Sonamarg was almost at full capacity throughout the year, which is far from truth, given that the harsh winter and the terrorist attack on the Z-Morh tunnel kept Sonamarg out of bounds for many weeks in 2024,' he said.
The tourism department has also stated that the hotels, lodges and other similar facilities in Kashmir can accommodate 77,050 persons, with the capital Srinagar figuring on top with a capacity of 56,022 beds, followed by Anantnag with 11,336 and Baramulla with 4,494.
A 2018 report in the International Journal of Advance Research in Science and Engineering said that the relative share of the tourism sector in Jammu and Kashmir's gross state domestic product (GSDP) fluctuated between 6.99% and 8.04%, making it a key sector which has generated a good number of jobs in the hospitality and transportation sectors in recent years.
In his first budget speech on March 7, chief minister Omar Abdullah asserted that his government was planning to increase the contribution of the tourism sector to the Union territory's GSDP from 7% to at least 15% over the course of his tenure.
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