At least 50 lakh tourists visited Jammu till June this year. An official told PTI that so far, 1,62,569 pilgrims have paid for the shrines of Kashmir, and out of them, 72,789 pilgrims have left the Jammu port camp, as per according to the data. “Last year, more than 1.4 million people visited Jammu region including Mata Vaishno Devi pilgrims. This year till June nearly 50 lakh tourists have entered Jammu region, including those who go to Mata Vaishno Devi temple (in Reasi district of Jammu),” Vivekanand Rai, director of tourism, Jammu, told PTI. He also informed that a campaign has also been started to inform Amarnath pilgrims about the must-see places.
The annual yatra to the Amarnath cave shrine in the southern Himalayas in Kashmir began on July 1 from the twin routes of Pahalgam in Anantnag district and Baltal in Ganderbal district. This yatra will end on August 31.
“These numbers show a positive trend for tourism in the region,” the official said.
Rai said that the tourism department has set up several billboards, notice boards and digital message boards in different parts of Jammu city for promoting the places and shrines. “The tourism department has launched a campaign through signboards and hoardings to inform the pilgrims of Amarnath who come in lakhs. We are telling them about the tourist destinations in Jammu,” he said. Rai, who is leading the campaign, said that these types of advertisements are used to show the destinations of tourists in Jammu.
The base camp of the Amarnath pilgrimage in Jammu, where more than 7,000 pilgrims are putting up on a daily basis, is dotted with hoardings and digital panels displaying must-visit places such as temples, and adventure and leisure tourism destinations.
“Because of this, we get good number of tourists during the yatra. When the yatra is stopped for some reason, the pilgrims are taken to different places during their stay. here,” Rai said.
