The City Beautiful is no more a preferable destination for foreign tourists for a leisure trip. Thanks to the Administration’s lack of vision in tourism policies, the city continued to witness decline in number of foreign tourist arrivals every year.
With no new tourism project in the recent past and no long term vision for tourism sector, the UT Administration is missing out a windfall in tourism revenue.
The number of foreign tourist arrivals has plummeted in Chandigarh in the year 2012 from the preceding years 2011 and 2010.
As per the protracted trend, the months of winter season like November, December, January, February attracts large number of foreign tourists in the city while during the summer vacation in June and July, the numeral remains passable. Nevertheless, the year 2012 has witnessed a slight change in the protracted trend.
The first three months of 2012 witnessed total of 8,656 foreign tourists thronging the city while in 2011, the number of foreign tourist arrivals was 9,546. The month of April in 2012 hosted the maximum number of 5,719 foreign tourists.
The month of July, August and September during 2011 had witnessed 8,778 foreign tourists while in 2012, the foreign tourist arrivals went down to 6,481.
The city’s foreign tourist arrivals further went down in the months of October, November and December. The winter 2011 had seen 12,918 foreign tourists while Chandigarh hosted 8438 foreign tourist in 2012 in these three months, again down by double-digit percentage.
In all, Chandigarh welcomed 34,130 foreign tourists in the year 2012 whereas the numeral of foreign tourist arrivals was 37,190 in the previous year. In 2012, the city hosted 2,472 foreign tourists in January, 3,094 in February and 3901 in the month of March. The statistics has been compiled by the UT Tourism Depar
tment, where the foreign tourist arrivals of over 60 hotels, guests houses and other lodging facilities of Chandigarh has been considered where these tourists have stayed overnight.
According to Tourist Department statistics, nearly 40,000 foreign tourists had visited Chandigarh in 2010 while in 2011, the numeral plummeted to 37,190. Apparently, the sharp decline in foreigners has exposed the tall claims of the Tourist Department.
As the much-publicised tourist projects of the city went up in smoke due to the apathy of UT Administration, Chandigarh is failing
to attract the attention
of foreigners.
While half of the tourism projects announced in the recent past remain uncompleted, other projects are yet to get off the ground. Be it the up-gradation of existing tourist spots or the development of new theme parks, the UT Administration is moving at snail’s pace to actualise these projects.
Meanwhile, a slight increase was witnessed in the domestic tourist arrivals in 2012 from the previous year. Around 92,4589 domestic tourists visited Chandigarh in 2012 while in 2011, 90,9904 had visited the city.
A senior official of the UT Administration while talking to The Pioneer said, “The foreign tourist arrival has witnessed a downward trend last year while domestic tourists’ arrival has increased.”
The official said, “The Tourism Department is planning to initiate the delayed ambitious projects during this year. The UT is also in the process to organise a number of new events this year to attract more tourists here.”