From gauging the public mood to catching the early trends of the tourism sector in Kashmir, all eyes are on 13 lakh tulips blooming at Srinagar’s Indira Gandhi Memorial Tulip Garden this year.
After a long and harsh winter, the tulip garden, spread over 30 hectares at the foothills of Zabarwan hills facing the Dal Lake, is the first public event that will attract locals and tourists to enjoy the spring season’s first blooming.
This year, the Jammu and Kashmir Floriculture Department has added one lakh more tulip bulbs and five more varieties to its total collection of 12 lakh, to ensure its status as the Asia’s biggest tulip garden.
“The sprouting of bulbs is in progress and are expected to bloom at the scheduled time of the Tulip Festival in March,” Director Floriculture, Kashmir, Farooq Ahmed Rather said.
Thrown open in last week of March, the tulip festival provides a rare platform for locals to come out of homes and celebrate at one place. It saw a footfall of 2.58 lakh visitors in 2019, significantly up from one lakh visitors in 2014.
“It remains to be seen if the garden attracts locals or not. It will reflect a shift in mood. More than that, it’s important for the tourism industry that visitors start travelling to Kashmir. This will be the first indicator of the likely trajectory of the tourism season in Kashmir this year,” said Nasir Shah, tourism player who heads the Culture and Nature Expeditions (CNE) company.
Sheikh Altaf, in-charge of the garden, hopes to see the garden open for 40 days. “A water channel has been added too in the backyards of the garden to prolong visitors’ stay in the garden. We hope to see three lakh visitors this year,” Mr. Altaf said.
Origin in Persia
With origin in Persia, the tulip has travelled a long way to add colour and charm to the Valley. Kashmir’s tulip garden, compared to Holland’s Keukenhof, is home to more than 70 varieties of tulips of different colours.
The tourism industry suffered a major loss in 2019, with tourist flow slowing down by 33% to 5.58 lakh tourists from 8.30 lakh in 2018. Most of the foreign countries continue to have negative travel advisories for Jammu and Kashmir, since the August 5 move of the Centre.
Huge loss
According to the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI), the tourism sector suffered ₹2,615 crore loss and over 50,000 job losses since August 5, 2019, which saw a prolonged period of shutdown and a curfew on the use of Internet in the Valley. All high-speed Internet services and the social media platforms continue to remain banned in Kashmir.
