The searing heat has been driving tourists to hill stations to stay cool. Holiday resorts at hill stations have been seeing a surge in tourist arrivals for over a week now, with the start of summer vacations.
Tour operators in Bengaluru and Mysuru maintain that bookings to the hill stations had been on the rise and enquiries for package tours to resorts in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have also shot up.
People in the tour and travel business in Mysuru a claim 40% hike in bookings to hill stations in the last few days. They hope to see more bookings in the days head, perhaps till the onset of monsoon.
“Hill stations have always been the most sought after destinations for holidaymakers in summer. Hotel and taxi bookings at the hill stations have been overwhelming. Mysuru is a passage for many of the hill stations and the city is also one of the beneficiaries with tourists’ stopover,” said B.S. Prashanth, president-elect, Mysuru Travels Association. He told The Hindu that summer holidays for children had been one of the reasons for soaring bookings.
Madikeri, Kemmangundi, Chikkamagaluru, Bababudangiri (Karnataka); Udhagamandalam, Coonoor and Kodaikanal (Tamil Nadu) and Thekkady, Munnar and Kumarakom (Kerala) were among the popular hill stations in the Southern circuit, Mr. Prashanth said.
Many tourists from the northern states have booked homestays and resorts in the ‘land of coffee’. En route to hill stations like Ooty, tourists were stopping over at Bandipur to glimpse the wildlife at Bandipur Tiger Reserve and also in Nagarahole National Park (towards Madikeri). Cauvery Nisargadhama (Kushalnagar) and Golden Temple (Bylakuppe), Bhagamandala and Talacauvery are the other tourist attractions.
Occupancy improves
Meanwhile, Mysuru Hotel Owners’ Association said it was hoping for a satisfying tourist season this summer as the industry had suffered losses owing to various reasons over falling numbers of arrivals.
Narayana Gowda, association president, told The Hindu that the occupancy rate in hotels here was around 80-90% on weekends and 60-70% on weekdays. The occupancy has gone up by 40% since over a week, he added.
Tourists from Kerala and Tamil Nadu were among the highest number of visitors to the city. All popular tourist destinations such as Mysuru Palace, Mysuru Zoo and others had been flooded with tourists.
A large section of the population in Mysuru depends largely on tourism revenue for their livelihood. The summer vacation is the peak season for tourism and stakeholders were looking forward to a promising season, according to industry representatives.
