Kashmir tourism has seen a dramatic decline as a mere 84000 visitors arrived in the last 18 months, since August 2019, to holiday in the region.
The numbers are a fraction of the footfall that had visited Kashmir valley annually during the first half of the 2010s when nearly a million tourists arrived each year for four consecutive years.
Union Tourism Minister Prahlad Patel today told the Parliament that 84,326 tourists visited Kashmir since August 5, 2019, when New Delhi revoked the limited autonomy of the region and imposed a crippling lockdown, PTI reported.
In the run-up to the revocation of the limited autonomy, tourists in Kashmir were asked to immediately evacuate the region.
“Since, 5 August, 2019, the number of tourist arrivals in Jammu & Kashmir declined. The impact was felt more severely in Kashmir valley than in the Jammu division,” the minister told the parliament. He however, said the tourist footfall in J-K is gradually increasing since last few months.
The number of tourist arrivals in Kashmir valley during the last 18 months is one of the lowest in recent years.
Kashmir valley had attracted a record million tourists annually in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. In 2015, the million run stopped short of a few thousand as 9,27,820 tourists had visited the valley.
