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Adverse weather may hit Jammu and Kashmir tourism this summer

Travel portals say bookings for March-end and early April were cancelled owing to recent floods, but remain optimistic for next two month on improving situation

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While the peak season to travel to the valley is underway, the weather has, however, played a spoilsport for the tourists. In the event of this climatic change, several people have already cancelled their trip to the valley following adverse travel advisories. But with the situation improving, the travel bodies are keeping their hopes alive.

For the entire past week, Kashmir recorded heavy rains causing surge in water levels with few areas being flooded, just when the tourism industry was readying itself to usher in the peak tourism season starting April through June. The memories of the devastation caused by the flood in September last year were still fresh in the minds of both locals and tourists.

Sharat Dhall, president, Yatra.com, an online travel portal, said, "We have seen some cancellations because of the flood and other advisories but we are quite hopeful that as the situation improves there will be a pick up again towards the later part of April and May. The cancellations were largely for April."

Ajay Prakash, former president of Travel Agents' Federation of India and owner of Nomad Travels, a city-based travel agency, said, "It is basically a wait-and-watch situation as people will wait to see how things turn out. If there is flood, obviously it will take some time to come back to normalcy. It hasn't fully recovered from last year's devastation and obviously if again something happens, it triggers fear in people's mind. The story last time was quite grim."

But Kashmir needs tourists badly as the fall in arrivals would affect the state quite adversely. And with news of water level in the Jhelum river reducing for the first time in a week, it provided some respite to people's fear.

Dhall said that nearly half of the bookings got cancelled for those intended to travel in March-end and early April. However, those who chose to travel did not report anything adverse.

Ranjeet Oak, head-holidays, MakeMyTrip, another online travel portal, said "Kashmir presently is contributing to 10% of bookings in April. A few bookings were cancelled, however, since the last couple of days, leads have picked up and customers are showing interest." Oak said that cancellations reported for first week of April were due to lack of enough clarity on the actual ground level situation.

However, he said that there has been no cancellations so far for those travelling in the later part of April or early May, but compared to last year, bookings this year is at a lower level.

"There was a dip due to incessant rains and flood warnings, however bookings have now started picking up and we expect the destination to bounce back in a big way this summer season. We are running live updates on our website and social media pages regarding the on-ground situation in Kashmir to assuage traveller concerns," Oak added.

The average trip duration to Jammu and Kashmir during summer is 5 to 6 days with tourists more likely to cover all three destinations – Srinagar, Pahalgam and Gulmarg in one go.

Rajesh Rateria, owner of city-based travel agency Cirrus Travels, said, "We have not reported any cancellations so far. For those planning to travel in mid-April, people may have cancelled the bookings, but for those travelling end-April and for May and June will not cancel immediately. One reason is also the high cancellation charges as people may lose out 30-40% on that. So more likely people will wait and watch till the last moment to see how things turn out."

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