Kashmir most preferred summer vacation place among Prayagraj locals
PRAYAGRAJ : Kashmir has emerged as the top vacation destination among Prayagraj residents this summer. If tour and travel operators are to be believed, around 50% of the people booking their tours through them for hill stations are heading to the Kashmir valley.
“Destinations of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh that till last year were at the top of their preference have slipped to number 2 and 3 places respectively. Goa is next on the list,” tour operators claim.
Those engaged in the tour and travel business are especially happy with the rising vacation bookings especially when the tour costs have risen by almost 20% post pandemic.
“Summer time after the exams and during the wedding season is the peak time for our business. Last two years were really poor owing to the pandemic. But this year the season is going good for us. Kashmir seems to have become a favourite destination once again with almost 50% of the hill station bookings for May and June being for it alone,” claimed Vishal Kanaujia of “EMI Holidays and Vending”.
In agreement is Rahul Khare of “Holiday Unlimited”, another tour and travel agency. “Kashmir is the top choice for vacation among the people this summer. After Kashmir, it’s Auli, Almora and Badrinath in Uttarakhand and Shimla, Mussoorie, Kullu, Manali and Chamba in Himachal Pradesh that are attracting good crowd and queries. With a number of attractive offers, even foreign locations like Dubai and Maldives are getting good number of tourists,” he claimed.
Make My Trip’s Pankaj Singh said though tour packages have witnessed a rise in price as compared to the pre and post pandemic period but the drought of tourists witnessed during the past two years seems to be ending.
Tour and travel operators said queries and bookings for trips during summer vacations started right after Holi this year. Honeymoon packages that were costing around Rs 34,000 to Rs 36,000 till two years back are now costing around Rs 55,000 and this does not include the cost of reaching Srinagar from Prayagraj.
A tour agency proprietor Dev Srivastava said around 250 bookings had taken place for May and June from Prayagraj for visiting popular sites in Kashmir including Gulmarg, Pahalgam and Sonmarg etc.