Travel industry plans special outreach campaigns to revive Kashmir tourism

New Delhi: Almost a month after the deadly Pahalgam terror attack that escalated tensions between India and Pakistan and led to Operation Sindoor, the travel industry is planning special packages through tie-ups with airlines, hotels and campaigns to gradually revive tourism in Jammu and Kashmir.

Industry bodies such as Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) said they would appeal to the government and relevant authorities to ensure safety and security of tourists and restore traveller trust.

TAAI said besides requesting Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah and relevant authorities to ensure strong security measures, it plans to work with hotels, and local tourism operators to offer special promotional packages and “personalised care” as part of a “Let’s visit J&K” campaign.

The industry body said it is inviting airline partners to provide promotional airfares and aims to reach over one million travellers through its direct customer base of over 2,400 companies nationwide in phase one of the campaign.

“We are planning to encourage people to travel from June onwards if the ceasefire continues and things go well,” said Sunil Kumar, president of TAAI.

“We feel we should unite as a nation and give confidence to travellers, besides assuring the people of J&K who are dependent on tourism,” he said.

IATO president Ravi Gosain said the attack on tourists was specifically to derail tourism. “Moving forward, we need to see that these perpetrators do not succeed,” he said.

The association plans to send out agents first to assess and evaluate the situation on the ground, he added.

Habibullah Pandow, MD of Kamran Tours and Travels and the vice president of Travel Agents Association of Kashmir, said the number of tourists in Kashmir have trickled down to hundreds since the attack.

He said the central and state governments need to play a pivotal role in restoring tourists’ trust.

“Within the country, our domestic flow is enough for Kashmir, and we will think of roadshows,” Pandow said. “Overtime, Kashmir has also become an expensive domestic package and we will have to look at discounted and reasonably priced packages on a demand and supply basis,” he added.

The J&K hotel occupancy has ranged between 50-60% and it was one of the earlier markets to recover after the Covid-19 pandemic, with occupancy crossing 50% as early as in the first quarter of 2021, said Karan Mahesh, senior sales, South and Southeast Asia, at STR, a CoStar Group firm.

In the organised accommodation space, CoStar tracks inventory of 160 properties representing 9,000 rooms in Jammu & Kashmir.

“There’s been consistent rate growth in the market with full year average daily rates having grown over 100% compared to 2019 in 2024,” Mahesh said.

Chander K Baljee, chairman and managing director of Royal Orchid Hotels, which has one hotel in Srinagar, said it will take a while to revive tourism. "The peak tourist season ends in June and this season is gone,” he said. “Our operations have not yet resumed in Kashmir and even in Amritsar and Himachal (excluding Dharamshala), we are operating at 30% and 40-50% of the normal business levels currently.”