AP Photos: Snow fills the Kashmir resort with tourists again
By DAR YASIN
GULMARG, India (AP) – Snow falls to the knees in the pastoral city of Gulmarg, or “flower meadow”, on the high plateau of Kashmir controlled by India.
With its white cloak, the idyllic hill station is watching tourists refill their hotels and ski, sledge and hike the Himalayan landscape.
The large influx of tourists is a dramatic shift for the tourism industry in disputed Kashmir, which faced a double blow of the coronavirus pandemic and severe civil rights restrictions that India imposed on the region in August 2019.
Gulmarg was developed as a resort by the British nearly a century ago, and the region’s eternal appeal to foreign visitors has made it a year-round destination. In summer, tourists roam meadows, ravines and valleys with evergreen forests. In winter, they snowboard and hike on Asia’s largest ski terrain.
The end of Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status in 2019 and an unprecedented crackdown on security have turned Gulmarg into a ghost town, an illustration of the region’s economic ruin. The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries estimated economic losses in the region at $ 5.3 billion and about half a million jobs lost as of August last year.
But the worst was yet to come. Last March, Indian authorities imposed a severe blockade to fight the coronavirus, almost preventing travel abroad.
The pandemic, however, made the Indians reconsider their own vacation. Since snow covered the hill station last month, they decided to travel to Gulmarg, otherwise they could have gone abroad. And for the first time in 15 months, hotels are sold out by the end of February.
“Nobody is concerned about the virus. Everyone is feeling free, ”said Meenu Nanda, 38, an Indian tourist.