On Sunday, Mysuru wore a festive look as several visitors gathered around the city palace

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

This Sunday, Mysuru, or the city of palaces wore a festive look as several visitors gathered in and around the city to see places. The locals crowded and bought flowers at 124-year-old heritage Devraj market despite price hike and the pandemic is creeping around the corner. The hotel owners and other tourism dependant people started sporting broad smile as occupancy rate of hotel rooms touched 30 percent. Mysuru’s tourism sector and Mandya districts that turned miserable a couple of days back slowly started reestablishing its erstwhile glory after the state government raised ban on tourist entry.

Many people rushed to see the fully lighted Mysuru Palace from outside the compound. The cultural programs arranged at the palace premises are out of bound for the view of the public of Covid restrictions. They are being live streamed on TV channels and social media platforms. Every day, it will be lit up for two hours from 7 pm to 9 pm during Dasara cultural programs. Many tourists clicked selfies with the palace in the backdrop.

Not quite anxious by Covid-19, yesterday, 18th Oct, Sunday witnessed about 1703 tourists including foreigners crowding to see Mysuru Palace. To quote C Narayangowda, hotel owners’ association President, “While there are 405 hotels with 9,500 rooms in Mysuru, 70 percent of them are open now. And 30 percent of the hotel rooms were occupied on Sunday. And we now have only domestic tourists from our own State. The occupancy of hotel rooms had dropped to less than 10 percent on Thursday and Friday after the district administration announced closure of tourism destinations. And 5 percent of the rooms were booked for the last three days of Dasara. It is for the first time we are seeing advance bookings for hotel rooms in Mysuru after lockdown restrictions were lifted and hotels got permission to open on 8 June.”

“Every year during Dasara, 40 percent of the tourists used to be from other States, and five percent foreigners, and 60 percent domestic tourists. By now 80 percent of our rooms would have been booked for Dasara.

However, only 50 percent of the hotels were open and the tourist and occupancy of hotel rooms was 5 percent in June when hotels and tourism destinations got permission to reopen. But tourists and hotel occupancy has picked up since September,” Mr. Narayangowda said.

To quote Mysuru approved tourists guides association president, Mr. S. J. Ashok, “Last year over 1000 foreigners from Korea, France, Isreal, UK and others were in Mysuru to witness Dasara jumbo savari procession. But this year since it is made virtual and also due to travel restrictions owing, we do not have any inquiry from foreigners to visit Mysuru for Dasara this year.

Those foreigners visiting Mysuru Palace now are mainly those who had come to Mysuru before March to learn yoga and are continuing to stay due to travel restrictions and also since their courses were not completed. And domestic tourists to Mysuru now are mainly business people and IT employees and those from Bengaluru. Resorts around Kabini reservoir in Nagarahole forest belt in Mysuru district were 100 percent occupied this week end with those domestic travellers. And there are some enquiries from tourists from neighboring Tamil Nadu and Kerala for last three days of Dasara.”

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