The tourism industry here is in distress. First it was IPL T20 Cricket Championship and now the comparatively cool weather conditions in plains having hit the tourism hard. Ironically, the summer vacations in schools have failed to improve the situation.
Usually the season started in first week of April when hotels started to get healthy occupancies. Interestingly, the booking registers of hotels in area failed to witness more entries in earlier days of April causing some anxious moments for hoteliers. However, when the temperature started to soar after mid April the IPL T20 matches came as a discouragement for people to go for outing.
Those associated with tourism got a breather with the starting of this month when mercury started to soar in plains. In fact, the tourist rush was picked up in first two weeks of this month giving some hope of good season ahead. However the things turned bad again after that when tourist rush declined considerably after mid May.
May and June are two months when tourist inflow reaches to its peak and this is the time when hotels, restaurants and roadside dhabhas make quick bucks. However with May coming to an end, all related to tourism are keeping their fingers crossed over for the coming time.
The May started on a good note and we were quite hopeful to keep the momentum up throughout the month, asserted an owner of hotel at Kasauli. However the expectations have now fallen flat with weather failing to improve, he lamented.
Meanwhile the declining tourists rush has also gave a worry to roadside vendors who set up their small make shift vends along Kalka-Shimla national highway every year in summers to offer fresh stone fruits and vegetables to the crossing motorists.
On the brighter side, the cloudy weather conditions accompanied by rain was in fact helping the Forest Department to reduce forest fire cases.
