Snow fills Kashmir resort with tourists again

GULMARG, India (AP) – Snow is knee-deep in the pastoral town of Gulmarg, or ‘flower meadow’, on the Indian-controlled Kashmir plateau.

With its blanket of white, the idyllic hill station once again sees tourists filling its hotels and skiing, sledging and trekking through the Himalayan countryside.

The large influx of tourists is a dramatic change for the tourism industry in disputed Kashmir, which suffered the double blow of the coronavirus pandemic and harsh civil rights restraint imposed by India in the region in August 2019.

Gulmarg was developed by the British almost a century ago as a resort and the region’s everlasting appeal to foreign visitors has made it a year-round destination. In summer, tourists wander through meadows, ravines and evergreen wooded valleys. In winter, they snowboard and trek on Asia’s largest ski terrain.

The end of Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status in 2019 and an unprecedented security measure turned Gulmarg into a ghost town, illustrating the region’s economic demise. The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimated economic losses in the region at $ 5.3 billion and lost about half a million jobs up to August last year.

But the worst was yet to come. Last March, Indian authorities enforced a hard lockdown to combat the coronavirus, virtually halting foreign travel.

However, the pandemic caused Indians to rethink their own vacation. Once the hill station was covered with snow last month, they decided to travel to Gulmarg when they might have gone abroad otherwise. And for the first time in 15 months, hotels are sold out until the end of February.

“Nobody is concerned about the virus. Everyone feels free, ”says Meenu Nanda, 38, an Indian tourist.