2.8 lakh tourists visited J-K till May

More than 2.8 lakh tourists visited Jammu and Kashmir in the first five months of the current year even as the state administration has focused on improving the tourist infrastructure in the state.

K Vijay Kumar, advisor to state Governor N N Vohra, today chaired a meeting of the tourism department to review its functioning and progress made on various developmental projects under several state and centre sponsored schemes.

Tourism department officials informed Kumar that 2,81,906 tourists visited the state till May this year, an official spokesman said.

He was told that various projects worth Rs 569.19 crore are in progress in the state and two installments have been released so far for different projects including construction of assets in lieu of those destroyed in 2014 floods.

While reviewing the facilities available for the tourists in the state, the advisor was informed that there are about 1,560 hotels, 787 guest houses and 910 houseboats in the state registered with the department having about 85,672 bed capacity.

Kumar called for putting in coordinated efforts at various levels in the administration and with the executing agencies to address the bottlenecks, if any, hampering the progress of developmental projects.

He called for regular follow-up of the projects to achieve the desired results at the earliest.

Secretary Tourism Rigzin Samphel, Director Tourism Kashmir Mahmood A Shah, Director Tourism Jammu Smita Sethi and other senior officials of the department were present in the meeting.

Detailed discussion was also held on the progress made on Cable Car projects in the state including ropeway from Bahu Fort to Mahamaya Park in Jammu and renovation of the first phase of Gulmarg Gondola.

Officials informed the meeting that the trial of the Jammu ropeway will start soon while renovation works of Gulmarg Gondola will be completed soon and the first phase shall restart by early July.

Kumar stressed for speedily developing all tourist circuits with all requisite facilities for the visiting tourists.

All the potential tourist places must be developed on the modern lines and every facility must be provided at these places so that tourists do not face inconvenience and after returning to their homes, they must act as ambassadors of the tourism department as well as the state, he said.

He called for practicing modern marketing strategies to portray the state's tourism potential in international market besides using social media effectively as a marketing tool to attract more people to visit the state.