Jammu and Kashmir administration is making fresh efforts to revive the traditional tourist footfall to Kashmir from West Bengal during the coming Pooja holidays and the autumn season. Bengal tourists in large numbers used to visit Kashmir during the peaceful pre-terrorism era but the connection was snapped 31 years ago when terrorism broke out in 1990 and subsequently Covid-19 played spoilsport.

West Bengal and Gujarat are among the few states from where tourists in large numbers used to visit Kashmir but the arrival has reduced just to a trickle due to Covid-19 and terrorism.

In a step towards persuading tourists to visit the valley, Director, Tourism, Kashmir, Dr. G.N. Itoo on Thursday held an online interactive session with travel trade representatives of West Bengal. He replied to various queries raised by the West Bengal stakeholders regarding the prospects of an autumn season and the arrival of tourists during the Pooja holidays.

Director Tourism apprised the travel trade representatives about the SoPs and steps taken by the Department for a comfortable and safe stay of tourists in J&K.

Welcoming the tourists, he informed that already more than 95% of tourism stakeholders in the valley have been vaccinated against Covid-19 and capacity building programmes have been held at various tourist destinations for stakeholders like hoteliers, ponywallas, tourist guides etc for conducting tourist business post-Covid-19 pandemic.

The meeting was attended by leading travel operators of West Bengal which included Manav Soni, Chairman Travel Agent Association of India Eastern region (TAAI) ER, Madan Agarwal, President Association of Tourism Service Providers Bengal (ATSPB), Nilanjan Basu, Secretary Travel Agent Association of Bengal (TAAB), Anil Punjabi, Chairman Travel Agent Federation of India (TAFI), West Bengal, Manas Mahapatra, President Tourism Welfare Association (TWA) and other travel trade representatives attended the meeting. Deputy Director Tourism, Ahsanul Haq Chishti, and Tourist officer, Kolkata, Ahsanul Haq also attended the meeting.