BY DEBAJYOTI CHAKRABORTY
KOLKATA | 10 JULY 2025
The Jammu and Kashmir government has started safety audit of its popular destinations after the dastardly attack upon the tourists in Pahalgam on 22 April this year, in which 26 toursists have been killed and once the reports are available the green signal will be given to those tourism destinations which are still closed for safety reasons and will be opened up for
the tourists one by one, said chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah at Kolkata today.
Mr. Omar Abdullah has said that ensuring the safety of the tourist is the topmost priority of his government. A number MLAs including Gulmarg and Patni Top, and two of the most popular tourist destinations along with additional chief secretary, Mr. Nasir Aslam Wani and Director of Tourism, Jammu accompanied him.
The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister the chief guest at TTF Kolkata 2025 today and said in his inaugural speech that West Bengal is culturally very much connected with Jammu and Kashmir and is the second highest domestic tourism resource in the country after Gujarat.
“ We are very much keen to rebuild the tourism and that’s why such a large delegation team from Jammu and Kashmir have come to Kolkata comprising so many top government officials. We are looking forward to once again a large footfall of Bengali tourists in Jammu and Kashmir during the upcoming long Durga Puja holidays. We are passing through our toughest time period in 2025 after having a record breaking tourism footfall in 2024. But slowly we are overcoming the situation and tourists have started returning back though in fewer numbers still ,”he added.
Before the Pahalgam terror attack there were 50 domestic flight arrivals daily to Srinagar and that number had dropped to 15 after the incident, but now has increased to 20 -25 arrivals per day from all over the country. The Kolkata flight has also resumed recently and I hope that more numbers of domestic flights will operate in the coming days.
“The safety of our tourists are of topmost priority and the central government, security forces and our own government are working together so that such incidents never recur. As head of the state I am visiting throughout the country to spread this message and assuring all stakeholders and will be taking part in all travel and tourism fairs and roadshow events in different parts of India in the coming days,” Omar Abdullah added.
Jammu and Kashmir was a sellers market rather than a buyers market before Pahalgan incident , but the scenario has drastically changed after the brutal incident in Pahalgam.
“ We are actually thinking prior to that from the volume based tourism to value tourism we will shift our tourism model in Jammu and Kashmir after the record footfall last year and before the Pahalgam attack and not realizing that even our volumes are going to start disappearing. We are not here to tell you the story of our doom and gloom and Jammu and Kashmir is now empty and we are here because of optimism, a message of hope and we are here because of a message of renewal of our tourism offerings ,”he added.
He has requested the tourists from the state to talk with the visitors going to Kashmir who have returned back what is the exact scenario post Pahalgam and a record number of football on Amarnath Pilgrimage this year including number of people from West Bengal. Hotels that had very much emptied out after 22 April 2025, have now begun to see a good number of bookings as tourism is picking up slowly, he said.
Connect between people of Bengal and J&K transcends a relationship since long time and it started from 1927 when a Bengali was the Prime Minister of Kashmir, he was an administrator, Sir Albian Raj Kumar Banerjee and he had resigned after two years for the sake of the poor people there.
In all our tough times since the 90’s, the people of West Bengal has always stood behind us politically, culturally and economically till today. We have something to offer for every tourist visiting in our top destinations and urge people of Bengal to please visit Jammu and Kashmir, he said.
Later in the evening he met with all the leading travel agents and associations of the state at a hotel in Kolkata. Security has been beefed up for his arrival to Kolkata yesterday evening and tomorrow morning he will leave for Srinagar.
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