Lalit Mohan
Lalit Mohan
Tribune News Service
Dharamsala, October 17
The hotel and tourism industry in Dharamsala, which has been under financial stress for the past about two years due to lack of tourists, is now witnessing revival of business. Weekend tourism has picked up in the region and in the coming months, tourists from other states are also expected to arrive.
Ashwani Bamba, president of the Hotel and Tourism Association of Upper Dharamsala, says that hotels in the region are experiencing 50 to 70 per cent occupancy at weekends now. During this long weekend because of Dasehra, tourists started visiting in a large number. “We expect the room occupancy to cross 70 per cent,” he says.
Bamba says that what is more encouraging for the hotel and tourism industry is that queries are being made by groups of tourists from Gujarat, Maharashtra and southern states for November. If these queries translate into bookings, it will help the hotel industry make good the losses it has suffered in the past two years.
The Dharamsala tourism industry is looking forward to the return of foreign tourists as well. It is heavily dependent on foreign tourists coming for teachings of the Dalai Lama and studying in the monasteries of Tibetans in the region.
Sanjeev Gandhi, general secretary of the Smart City Dharamsala Hotel Association, says that the Union Government has announced that it will give free visa to 5 lakh foreign tourists. “Till date, international flights to India have not started from many countries. We want that as soon as the threat of the third wave of Covid-19 subsides, the Union Government should go ahead with its scheme to attract foreign tourists,” he adds.
The Tibetan monasteries and museums are a major tourist attraction in Dharamsala for Indian and foreign tourists. Almost all monasteries and museums of Tibetans have been closed since the outbreak of Covid-19 in March, 2020. The Dalai Lama’s teachings are also happening online. Sources say that the teachings of the Dalai Lama are not going to happen offline in the near future owing to the threat perception to the aging political figure of the Tibetan cause due to Covid-19.
