Though focused attention on showcasing Kashmir tourism both within and outside the country has unprecedentedly increased the flow of tourist arrivals in Kashmir this year but the rise in tourist inflow witnessed this year has necessitated the development of tourist infrastructure at new tourist places to make them places of tourist attraction within and outside the country. While the ministers, administrative secretaries and directors of the tourism department during the years of popular rule in erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir state used to spend big chunks of money on foreign trips for holding cultural conclaves at world class tourist destination centres to showcase valley’s old tourist destinations there, not even a single audit has been conducted to fix responsibility on the public functionaries for the failure of mega cultural events to showcase Kashmir’s new tourist spots at world class tourist destination centres for years and decades together.
While auditing the lavish spending on tourism promotion by successive popular governments of erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir state needs to be probed by any premier investigative agency of the Jammu & Kashmir Government, the incumbent government is carrying forward the practice of showcasing new tourist places by holding cultural shows for the purposes of bringing more and more tourist places of Jammu & Kashmir on international tourist map. Holding tourism promotion events within and outside Jammu & Kashmir and even at the world class tourist destination centres year after year is obviously an attempt to change more and more tourist spots into attractive tourist destinations.
“Though people know all about traditional tourist centres of Kashmir but showcasing new tourist places and developing tourist infrastructure remain the two big challenges for the government. So by all standards of understandabilities focus has to be both on showcasing new tourist places and as well as developing tourist infrastructure at such new tourist places for the purposes of making them ideal places of tourist attraction within and outside the country.”
Promise of developing tourist infrastructure at new tourist places remain as big a challenge as it was last years. Constructing hotels and huts at famed tourist destinations is not the only way to change new tourist places into places of tourist attraction within and outside the country. Though people know all about traditional tourist centres of Kashmir but showcasing new tourist places and developing tourist infrastructure remain the two big challenges for the government. So by all standards of understandabilities focus has to be both on showcasing new tourist places and as well as developing tourist infrastructure at such new tourist places for the purposes of making them ideal places of tourist attraction within and outside the country.