Snow fills Kashmir resort with tourists

GULMARG, India (AP) – Snow lies knee-deep in the pastoral village of Gulmarg, or ‘meadow of flowers’, on the high plateau of India-controlled Kashmir.

With its white blanket, the idyllic hill station sees tourists once again filling their hotels, skiing, sledding and trekking through the Himalayan landscape.

The heavy influx of tourists is a dramatic change for the tourism industry in the disputed Kashmir, which has faced the double blow of the coronavirus pandemic and fierce fighting over civil rights that India instituted in the region in August 2019.

Gulmarg was developed as a resort by the British almost a century ago, and the perpetual attraction of the region with foreign visitors made it a destination for the whole year. In summer, tourists meander through meadows, gorges and evergreen wooded valleys. In winter, they snow and trek on Asia’s largest ski area.

The end of 2019 of Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status and an unprecedented security influx turned Gulmarg into a ghost town, an illustration of the region’s economic downfall. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kashmir linked economic losses in the region to $ 5.3 billion and lost about half a million jobs by August last year.

But the worst was yet to come. Last March, the Indian authorities applied a hard lock to combat the coronavirus, but it stopped foreign travel besides.

However, the pandemic caused Indians to reconsider their own holidays. After snow covered the hill station last month, they decided to travel to Gulmarg, otherwise they might have gone abroad. And for the first time in 15 months, hotels were sold out until the end of February.

“Nobody is worried about the virus. Everyone feels free, ”said Meenu Nanda, 38, an Indian tourist.