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Shimla witnesses surge in tourist arrivals |
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Shimla: A huge number of tourists are flocking the beautiful hill station of Shimla, which has resulted in 100 per cent hotel occupancy.
The rising temperature and extension of holidays in schools of Delhi and Punjab together with power cuts are making people travel to cooler places like Shimla, Manali, Dalhousie or even McLeodganj.
Ajit Butail, Chairman of CII Tourism Cell, Himachal Pradesh said that on an average about 50,000 plus tourists are coming to Shimla every day, which has a bed capacity of about 35,000. The forest department has offered their rest houses on lease and opened Ecotourism camps at various places, as well as the home stay scheme of tourism department. The visitors are diverted to rural areas in the vicinity, preventing de-congestion of known tourist destinations.
Praising the effort of people of Sangla Valley in Kinnaur district, who had formed the House Owners Association last year and treated tourists to festival of local cuisine, culture and folklore, Butail said that it had the desired effect and this year over 5,000 tourists visited the tribal destination.
He further said that residents from other valleys should take a cue from them and open up their regions to tourists, which will primarily help in decongesting the better known destinations and open up virgin tracts to visitors. However, Butail said that another positive thing was that the hotel owners were not taking advantage of the great inflow of tourists and fleecing them on the plea of non-availability of rooms.
Harnam Kukreja, President, Shimla Hoteliers and Restaurants Association said that all hotels in the city were fully occupied to capacity and unregistered hotels and guest houses were also having a field day as porters were diverting the tourists to these places.
(Posted on : 02/07/2009)
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| Shimla witnesses surge in tourist arrivals |
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