Fully geared up after successful vaccination campaign of and capacity building among local tourism stakeholders back home, the J&K Department of Tourism has started a vigourous promotional campaign among the potential tourism markets across the country.

Under this promotional initiative, officers of the Department would be travelling to various major cities of the country where they would be holding meetings, interactions, road shows with representatives of the travel trade industry and the media. To begin with the cities targeted include Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Kolkatta.

In this connection, a team of officers comprising Deputy Director, Tourism(Registration/Publicity), Kashmir, Dr. Ahsanul Haq Chishti and Deputy Director, Tourism(Publicity), Jammu, Naresh Kumar are in Chennai where they held back to back meetings with local tour operators, local media fraternity and even some prospective buyers of J&K tourism products.

During the meetings, the officers apprised the representatives of tour travel industry about the preparedness of the Jammu & Kashmir administration and tourism stakeholders in terms of COVID-19 protocol and precautions. They said soon after the outbreak of Covid-19, the UT administration prioritised the vaccination of tourism stakeholders including taxi operators, hoteliers, shikarawallas, tourist guides, ponywallas etc. and so far 95 per cent of all tourism stakeholders stand vaccinated.

On the diversified tourism products available in J&K, the officers informed that the Golfing circuit of Jammu & Kashmir particularly the iconic Royal Springs Golf Course and Pahalgam Golf Course provides a rich and varied world class experience to visiting golfers which is unparalleled in rest of the country. Besides, the Gulmarg Golf Course is being re done while as the Kashmir Golf Course at Srinagar which was shut for seven years after the devastating floods of 2014 has

been re-laid, its fairways and greens redone and it was thrown open last month while as the Jammu-Tawi Golf Course has been developed of international quality. During the current year more than seven golf tournaments of national and international standard are lined up for next two months which includes the prestigious PGTI-Pro tournament which is expected to witness participation of around 126 top golfers of the country and abroad. Currently all major cities in the country have direct air connectivity with Srinagar and Jammu airports.

Similarly this year, the officers informed that, adventure activities like trekking and rafting have picked pace among the adventure loving tourists and the Government has thrown open many more treks for exploration from this year. Niche tourism in Jammu & Kashmir is picking up with religious, heritage, adventure, golf etc. being on the enquiry list of prospective tourists. Many more new destinations are being explored and put on the tourism map of the UT.

The meetings were told that last winter and this summer an encouraging number of production houses from Southern states completed their shootings at various locations across J&K, particularly Kashmir. A vigorous advertisement campaign is being launched by the Department all across major cities of the country besides a calendar of festivals for the coming three months has been drawn up including the iconic autumn and Winter festivals.