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Neeraj Bagga
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, December 23
City-based hotels find their room occupancy full this winter season.
Piyush Kapoor, manager of a leading private hotel, said, “Winters are generally a peak season, but vacations coinciding with Christmas holidays and five-day public banks’ closure have ushered into a highly peak season.”
Room occupancy has increased in all the categories of hotels as tourists are coming from pan India.
Earlier, majority of the tourists used to come from the National Capital Region (NCR), but now, with the availability of direct flights from the holy city to all major regions of the country, tourists are availing benefits of easy connectivity, Kapoor said.
Amritsar is having direct flights to Mumbai, Goa, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Guwahati.
Similarly, foreign and NRI tourists are also availing benefits of the international connectivity to Dubai, London, Bangkok and Singapore.
Amritsar Hotel and Restaurant Association president APS Chatha said, tariffs of rooms also increased as per the footfall of tourists. There has been a remarkable revenue growth all these years while room occupancy has grown substantially.
Most of the footfall emanated from Delhi and adjoining NCR, followed by Mumbai, Kolkata and Gujarat.
Rest of the 20 per cent footfall comes from the UK, Australia, Canada and the US.
Operationalisation of tourist places like the Heritage Village, Gobindgarh Fort, Ram Tirath, War Museum and Sadda Pind created to showcase old Punjabi country lifestyle has attracted tourists.
He added that these places prolonged the stay of tourists to two nights. Earlier, they used to leave just after paying obeisance at the Golden Temple and watching the Retreat ceremony at the Attari-Wagah Joint Check Post.
Hoteliers opined that the tourists from the NCR now got more choice in selecting tourist destinations which was earlier confined to Agra and Jaipur.
Tour and travel operator Sarbjit Singh said the demand for taxis had picked up during this season.
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