Homestay units in Dharmasala getting popular with IT engineers from metros

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, September 25

At a time when the hotel and tourism industry in Himachal is reeling under a recession due to a decreased tourist inflow, the new trend of IT engineers looking for places to work away from their offices in metros has provided a ray of hope for various homestay units in rural areas of Kangra district.

Dharmasala and its surrounding areas have many small homestay units that were earlier frequented by bagpacker tourists from both within the country and abroad. In fact, Dharamkot village — which is now part of the Dharamsala Smart City — has earned the sobriquet of “Little Israel” as it has been a favourite destination of bagpacker tourists from Israel for the past three to four decades. The village has no big hotel but has many small homestay units with three to six rooms that used to be occupied for long durations by these foreign tourists.

However, since the outbreak of pandemic, the inflow of foreign tourists has come to a naught. This had hit the livelihood of Dharamkot villagers. However, now that the government has opened up the state borders, IT engineers from various parts of the country are giving a ray of hope for these homestay units.

Rashpal, who runs a homestay unit in Dharamkot, says they have been getting queries from IT engineers from Delhi and the NCR, who want to move out of their area and are looking for rooms in homestay units on rent for 15 days to a month. A few engineers have already moved in Dharamkot, he said.

Naveen, who has a homestay in the Rakkar area, said he had already rented out his rooms to IT engineers from Delhi on a monthly basis. “As the usual tourism business in the Dharamsala region is unlikely to start till next summer, renting out our rooms on a monthly basis is a better alternative,” he said.

Ashwani Bamba, president of Hotel and Restaurant Association of Upper Dharamsala, said even hotels in the Bhagsu area were receiving queries from IT engineers from Delhi and Mumbai for renting out rooms. “The only drawback is that in some areas, internet connectivity is not good, which is a basic requirement for the IT industry. We request the Himachal Government to resolve the problem by talking to telecom companies,” he said.