Tourism in the Darjeeling hills has gone
down by nearly 30 per cent this festive season despite the
Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha's untiring endeavour to facilitate
a steady tourist inflow into what is acclaimed as ‘the
queen of hill stations.’ Tour operators and hotel owners,
however, say that inflow of tourists to the hills was not
as bad as had been apprehended.
The general secretary of the Darjeeling
Hotel Owners’ Association, Mr Palden Lama, said that
the inflow of tourists from different parts of West Bengal
was down by 30 per cent this festive season. “The situation
might have been worse had not the tourists from other states
included the hills in their tour itinerary, availing of the
LTC facilities allowed by the Centre this time for the North
Eastern region. Many of the tourists have just been passing
through Darjeeling on their way to or back from Gangtok,”
he said.
He, however, hoped that the situation would improve significantly
by Diwali and continue till the season's end.
According to Mr Paral Dahal, a Darjeeling
and Gangtok-based tour operator, a large inflow of foreign
tourists had somewhat made up for the remarkably lesser inflow
of tourists from West Bengal and the adjoining states like
Bihar. “The tourism momentum, however, has been picking
up since last week, though compared to normal standard the
picture is not enthusing,” he said.
A senior official of the Eastern Himalaya
Travel and Tour Operators’ Association said that whatever
might be the number of tourists in the hills right now, the
worst crisis seemed to have passed over. “We can hope
for better things in the near future with the political situation
returning to normal,” he said.
The secretary of the Travel Operators’
Association Mr Samrat Sanyal, said that the nightmarish lull
in tourism in the Darjeeling hills had become a thing of the
past. “The number of tourists in the hills this festive
season is sufficient to instill confidence in those who are
dithering in anticipation of fresh political turmoil,”
Mr Sanyal said.
Courtesy: The Statesman |
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