16 hours ago
After lean start in May, tourist footfall sees rise in Himachal
After witnessing a slowdown in tourist footfall last month due to the escalation of hostilities between India and Pakistan, Himachal Pradesh has seen a significant increase in tourist arrivals so far in June.
The hotel occupancy has also risen in the first week of June, and hoteliers in the hill state are hopeful that the footfall will further increase in the coming weeks.
In May, the tourism industry in Himachal suffered losses as many tourists cancelled their bookings amid uncertainty. Tourism stakeholders said that people were hesitant to travel due to the prevailing situation at the time. The closure of airports further restricted movement, adversely affecting tourism in the state.
Shimla hotels and tourism stakeholders' association president Mohinder Kumar Seth said that the recent long weekend, due to Eid, helped boost tourism, with hotel occupancy in Shimla reaching around 80–90%. 'The first week of June was better from a tourism perspective compared to the previous month, with occupancy touching up to 50% during weekdays. Last month, there was a steep decline in tourist footfall, and hotel occupancy was only around 20%, leading to significant losses for hoteliers,' he said.
'Since hotels are usually almost fully booked during June, we are expecting occupancy to rise further in the coming weeks, judging by the trend in the first week,' he added.
Due to the sharp decline in tourist arrivals last month, hoteliers in Dharamshala even offered discounts on bookings. Traditionally, the peak tourism season in Himachal begins around May 21. However, this year, hotel occupancy in Dharamshala dropped significantly in May, remaining at around 30%.
Ashwani Bamba, president of Hotel and Restaurant Association, Dharamshala, said that the average hotel occupancy on this weekend was around 80% in Dharamshala and on weekdays it reached to around 50-55%. 'As the temperature in plains is increasing and summer vacations announced in Punjab schools, we expect that the hotel occupancy in Himachal will hover around 75% in coming days till the arrival of monsoon in the state,' he said.
Meanwhile, Manali in Kullu district has also seen a surge in the number of tourists in recent days. Anup Thakur, president of the Kullu-Manali Paryatan Vikas Mandal, said that the hotel occupancy which had plummeted during May has gone up now. At present, the occupancy is around 70% and we are hoping that it is further increased in coming weeks. Mostly, the tourists visiting are from neighboring states but there are some tourists from other states as well,' he said.
