Kashmir woos Bengal tourists with new packages, discounts

Kolkata, Jul 31 (UNI) With scars of insurgency still alive in the minds of the Bengali tourists who recently visited Kashmir, Director Tourism-Kashmir Farooq Ahmed Shah today wooed Bengalis with attractive packages and discounts.

Speaking to mediapersons here, Mr Farooq said, ''The Centre and our state government are actively chalking out measures to curb insurgency in J&K and the toursits should not be scared about it,'' he said.

After several Bengalis died and got injured in recent bomb blasts in Kashmir, new packages have been designed and additional discounts would be offered to attract Bengali tourists, Mr Shah said.

An additional five to 10 per cent discounts would be given to Bengali tourists. Apart from sight seeing, rafting, trekking, skiing and other adventure tourism have been included in the packages. The tour operators would also introduce five to six new packages.

''Jammu and Kashmir would continue to attract tourists from various parts of the country, including West Bengal, in spite of several bomb blasts in the recent past,'' Mr Shah said.

However, he claimed that there was record tourist inflow in J&K last year with six lakh domestic, four lakh Amarnath yatris and 24,000 foreign tourists visiting the state.

''Already 3.6 lakh domestic tourists have already visited the state. The number of Amarnath Yatris was 2.5 lakhs,'' Mr Shah said adding that he expects a steady growth this year also.

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