11 lakh tourists visited Kashmir despite floods, elections

Despite the devastating floods and two elections in the state this year, about 11 lakh tourists thronged Kashmir, even as efforts are on to attract more visitors to the Valley during the winters.

“We had crossed the figure of 10 lakh tourists before the floods and as the year is to end now, we have received around 11 lakh visitors,” Director Tourism, Kashmir, Talat Pervez told PTI.

Pervez said Kashmir hosted more than 20,000 tourists every month since the floods in September.

“After the floods caused widespread devastation, we have been able to revive the tourism by 50 per cent. We used to receive around 40,000 tourists per month for this period of the year but after the deluge, around 20,000 tourists visited Kashmir every month,” he said.

The director said he was hopeful of “fully reviving” tourism in the next three months as the department was taking many steps aimed at reviving the sector in the Valley and many more initiatives were in the offing.

“We are holding local level events, interactions with tour operators outside the state and festivals to dispel the notion that Kashmir was not safe to travel after floods. We have also invited tour operators from outside to see for themselves what the Valley had to offer. We are on a vigorous publicity campaign for promotion of tourism,” he said.

Pervez said the stakeholders too were taking a few initiatives to put the sector back on track.

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