The Assam tourism has been severely hit by violent protests against the amended citizenship act and the loss in tourism sector is estimated at Rs1,000 crore, as said by a top official on Tuesday.
The sector performed extremely poor in December and will also badly impact too in January, considered two of the peak months for tourist inflow,as told by Assam Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) chairman Jayanta Malla Baruah in a press conference.
In a year, the peak tourist season in Assam is mainly from December to March. These four months account for 48 per cent of the sector’s total contribution for the entire year, he added.
According to the estimate,Rs 500 crore would be the loss to the sector for December and January each. The hotel industry alone lost Rs 60crore in 15 days since 11th December, when protest erupted across the state.
Not only domestic tourists, the flow of tourists from abroad suffered badly as a number of countries issued travel advisory for their citizens because of the ongoing protests, Baruah said.
The states earnings from the tourism sector is Rs 2,000-2,500 crore per annum.
Due to this impact during peak season, there will be 30 percent fall in tourist footfall in 2019-20, but hoping for a slight improvement from this situation in February. This year the state expected around 65 lakh domestic and 50,000 foreign tourists to visit. But so far 80 per cent of the bookings are cancelled for December and January, the ATDC chairman further said.
To recover from the losses, ATDC has tied up with online giant Google to promote Assam Tourism on its various platforms.
From January, ATDC has plan to organise four roadshows in Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Goa for domestic tourists. The state tourism department will also contact the embassies of all the countries those issued travel advisories and urge them to lift it. Further ATDC has plan to arrange FAM (familiarisation) trips if necessary.
