Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti is invoking travel agents and the Bollywood to revive tourism in the Kashmir Valley where successive tourist seasons have failed since 2016 due to terror strikes. At the same time she is cursing the media for scaring away the tourists.

With the meeting of the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI) earlier this week in Srinagar after 30 years having gone positively with the travel industry, the CM is pinning hopes of revival of tourism in the Valley this summer.

Bollywood has also responded positively to her invitation and some top film producers have visited the state to do spadework for shooting films at various locations. Kashmir had always remained the favourite destination of film producers but they shifted to Himachal Pradesh and other places when terrorism struck here.

Top tourist operators converged in Srinagar for the national tourism convention and it is being seen as a step towards reaffirming and reassuring tourists that Kashmir is as safe as any other place in the world. However, much would depend on how the authorities keep terrorism under control and also prevent the atmosphere from getting vitiated.

The state government made all-out efforts to sell as destination the golf course and the sprawling tulip garden to the tour operators. The visiting members of TAAI were taken to the two places to witness their beauty. The tulip garden has been further extended and 12.25 lakh flowers are there to attract visitors.

Incidents of terrorism have been scaring away the tourists from Jammu and Kashmir while Himachal Pradesh has turned out to be the beneficiary with increased tourist footfall.

The trouble for the Kashmir tourism industry began in the summer of 2016 when a local terrorist commander Burhan Wani was killed by security forces in an encounter.

This was followed by a long stretched violent agitation in the Valley, which resulted in virtual failure of the summer and winter tourism. The economy of Kashmir depends mostly on tourism and any untoward happening hits those related with the tourist trade, hard.

In a bid to promote tourism in Kashmir, the Central government has from time to time been giving various concessions to its employees to visit the Valley but that has not yielded desired results because of militancy. Moreover, USA, Britain and other countries have not withdrawn advisories to their citizens against visiting Kashmir.