‘Kashmir Calling’ campaign on cards to woo tourists
Managing perception about K-conflict big challenge for Govt: Comm Secy Tourism
In order to woo tourists from across the world to Jammu and Kashmir, Mufti Sayeed led PDP-BJP government is facing severe challenges to manage what they say “perception” about Kashmir conflict.
“Perception management has been a biggest challenge for the government to tackle as the negative publicity often hits out the State like a tsunami,” Commissioner Secretary, Tourism & Culture, Shailendra Kumar told.He said perception about Jammu and Kashmir has to be managed in a big way and people including civil society, government and media have to play their best role into it.
“The dent caused by certain events brings us back to the square one and all our efforts to reach out to the maximum number of places and tourists yield no results,” he said.
Kumar said the hoisting of green flag sets a negative trend for the tourist influx to the picturesque Valley.
There have been many incidents of waving of Pakistani flags in the Valley after PDP-BJP government assumed power in March and even today the Pakistani flag was waved in downtown Srinagar.
“In Kashmir, we are sub-servants to many corners – sometimes to protest calendars sometimes to the bigger plans of the big uncle across the border, who keeps us on toes,” Kumar said.
He said a single untoward incident brings the tourism graph down to the zero. “And if we have invested one month of PR, Packaging, lobbying, the single day of incident shuts the business for the rest of the month and then it is very difficult to strike back”.
The official said they would be soon launching a ‘Kashmir Calling Campaign’ to woo more and more tourists to the Himalayan state. “The decision in this regard has been taken to set the things going”.
“This is a move to revamp the post flood tourist influx to J&K. We are working on Kashmir Calling Campaign, wherein we will woo tourists’ to visit all the Srinagar and virgin areas of Kashmir valley,” Kumar said adding this will help them in doing away with the flood horror that tourists willing to come to Kashmir still carry with them.
Earlier, government said that they were facilitating number of tourism stakeholders to shift their base to Kashmir for next decade and give its tourism sector “big boost.”
A number of Mumbai-based event managers and wedding planners has already approached Chief Minster Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, who assured them all possible support in helping them organize the big fat Kashmir wedding for their world-wide clientele.
Mufti had said that he would ensure that people get all the services that too hassle-free.
Kashmiris are known for spending lavishly on weddings and serving Wazwan, a multi-course meal considered an art and a point of pride in Kashmiri culture and identity.
