The White Christmas in Shimla has ushered in the hope for a brighter New Year in the hill State. The out-of-blues snowfall on December 25, nevertheless is ringing in new hopes for the tourism industry in HP. The expectancy of “good business” has snowballed into ‘major enthusiasm’ as the flakes appear to have buried away the demonetisation blues.
Till about a month back, the tourism scene in the hill State was apparently gloomy with prospective tourist refraining themselves from making plans for celebrating New Year. The snowfall has brought a beaming hope as the number of queries has witnessed a sudden spurt after the snow fall on Christmas in Shimla and the Dhauladhar ranges.
Enthused with the sudden snowfall in Shimla, Vijay Sharma, General Manager, Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC), said that the snow fall in mountains would definitely give a boost to tourism industry in the state as the number of queries in hotels is surging fast.
HPTDC has 59 properties including hotels and guest houses in Himachal Pradesh, besides 10 restaurants. According to Sharma, HPTDC has got around 70-80 percent bookings in all its hotels for the New Year celebrations, and after the Sunday snowfall, the expectations for 100 per cent occupancy in hotels for New Year celebration were quite high.
DP Bhatia, Head of liaison, Oberoi Hotels, Shimla said that the Oberoi Hotels have already got 100 percent bookings for New Year celebrations, but the bookings have been received till January 3. The further inflow of tourists will depend on recurrences of snowfall.
But the Weather forecast from the Meteorological department does not seem to be very positive for people, who await snowfall for moving to mountains. Manmohan Singh, Director, Meteorological Department told The Pioneer, that the chance of another spell of snow in Shimla were meagre.
The sudden snowfall in Shimla on Sunday while provided memorable moments to tourists, it has also brought an end to the dry spell, which has been worrying farmers in the state besides causing dent to ecology of the state as more than 1500 incidents of forests fires were reported in past fortnight in mountains.
The snowfall has brought a severe dip in minimum temperature in Shimla and Manali, especially. Shimla registered minimum temperature of 3.3 and 4.8 on Saturday and Sunday nights respective, which was otherwise keeping around 10 degrees before that. The dip in temperature is warming up the hopes of hoteliers that the new year may neutralize the pessimism, which has been caused by demonetisation.