Leh tourism declines by 50 per cent in 2019

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Leh tourism is going through a tough phase as footfall of tourists has dropped by more than 50 percent in 2019 as a result of a host of reasons like Lok Sabha elections, shortened flight services and late opening of Leh-Manali road, according to hotel industry players.

The Leh district in Jammu and Kashmir is among one of the preferred destinations for international visitors as almost 50,000 people from foreign countries visited the land of high passes in 2018, tourism officials had said.

Leh district, which is part of Ladakh region, has more than 100 hotels and guest houses to serve international and domestic tourists apart from trekkers.

“There is a drastic fall in the arrival of tourists to Ladakh this year. There is nearly 50 per cent fall in tourist footfall in these months as compared to last year during the same period,” hotelier Amrit Badam said.

Amrit, whose company manages hotel and liquor business in Ladakh for the past three decades, charges the deferred opening of Leh-Manali road, security-related issues in Kashmir, and lower flight operations along with Lok Sabha elections for the radical drop in the tourist footfall in Ladakh in 2019.

He said that in comparison to 80 to 95 per cent of occupancy of hotels in May 2018, there was only 40 per cent occupancy in May 2019,

Likewise, in first fortnight of June, there is only 30 per cent occupancy of hotels and 60 per cent in second fortnight in comparison to 90 per cent in June 2018, Amrit said.

The mountain-locked Leh can be reached through Kashmir and Manali (Himachal Pradesh) through Srinagar-Leh and Manali-Leh highways in addition to taking aerial route.

“Manali-Leh highway was reopened after much delay for vehicular traffic on June 10.”
In the same way, Srinagar-Leh highway is encountering multiple closures at Zojila as a result of blasting by BRO. They have contributed to low tourist arrivals to Leh,” Amrit said.

He explained that tourism in the region has also been after Jet Airways, which used to operate extensively on the route in summer, stopped its operations.

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