SRINAGAR, India (AP) 鈥 There are hardly any tourists in the scenic Himalayan region of Kashmir. Most of the hotels and ornate pinewood houseboats are empty. Resorts in the snowclad mountains have fallen silent. Hundreds of cabs are parked and idle.
It鈥檚 the fallout of that left 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir followed by tit-for-tat military strikes by India and Pakistan, bringing the over the region.
鈥淭here might be some tourist arrivals, but it counts almost negligible. It is almost a zero footfall right now,鈥 said Yaseen Tuman, who operates multiple houseboats in the region鈥檚 main city of Srinagar. 鈥淭here is a haunting silence now.鈥
Tens of thousands of panicked tourists left Kashmir within days after the rare killings of tourists on April 22 at a picture-perfect meadow in southern resort town of Pahalgam. Following the attack, authorities temporarily in the region, adding to fear and causing occupancy rates to plummet.
Graphic images, repeatedly circulated through TV channels and social media, deepened panic and anger. India blamed Pakistan for supporting the attackers, a charge Islamabad denied.
Those who had stayed put fled soon after . As the two countries fired missiles and drones at each other, the region witnessed mass cancellations of tourist bookings. New Delhi and Islamabad reached a on May 10 but hardly any new bookings have come in, tour operators said.
Sheikh Bashir Ahmed, vice president of the Kashmir Hotel and Restaurant Association, said at least 12,000 rooms in the region鈥檚 hundreds of hotels and guesthouses were previously booked until June. Almost all bookings have been cancelled, and tens of thousands of people associated with hotels are without jobs, he said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a huge loss.鈥 Ahmed said.
The decline has had a ripple effect on the local economy. Handicrafts, food stalls and taxi operators have lost most of their business.
Idyllic destinations, like the resort towns of Gulmarg and Pahalgam, once a magnet for travelers, are eerily silent. Lines of colorful hand-carved boats, known as shikaras, lie deserted, mostly anchored still on Srinagar鈥檚 normally bustling Dal Lake. Tens of thousands of daily wage workers have hardly any work.
鈥淭here used to be long lines of tourists waiting for boat rides. There are none now,鈥 said boatman Fayaz Ahmed.
Taxi driver Mohammed Irfan would take tourists for long drives to hill stations and show them grand Mughal-era gardens. 鈥淓ven a half day of break was a luxury, and we would pray for it. Now, my taxi lies standstill for almost two weeks,鈥 he said.
In recent years, the tourism sector grew substantially, making up about 7% of the region鈥檚 economy, according to official figures. , Kashmir鈥檚 top elected official, said before the attack on tourists that the government was aiming to increase tourism’s share of the economy to at least 15% in the next four to five years.
Indian-controlled Kashmir was a top destination for visitors until the armed rebellion against Indian rule began in 1989. Warfare laid waste to the stunningly beautiful region, which is partly controlled by Pakistan and claimed by both countries in its entirety.
As the conflict ground on, the tourism sector slowly revived but occasional military skirmishes between India and Pakistan kept visitors at bay.
But India vigorously pushed tourism after Prime Minister Narendra Modi鈥檚 government scrapped the disputed region鈥檚 semi-autonomy in 2019. Tensions have simmered, but the region has also drawn amid a strange calm enforced by an intensified security crackdown.
According to official data, close to 3 million tourists visited the region in 2024, a rise from 2.71 million visitors in 2023 and 2.67 million in 2022. The massive influx prompted many locals to invest in the sector, setting up family-run guesthouses, luxury hotels, and transport companies in a region with few alternatives.
Tourists remained largely unfazed even as Modi鈥檚 administration has in recent years, claiming militancy in the region was in check and a tourism influx was a sign of normalcy returning.
The massacre shattered those claims. Experts say that the and that the rising tourism in the region of which it boasted was a fragile barometer of normalcy. Last year, Abdullah, the region鈥檚 chief minister, cautioned against such optimism.
Tuman, who is also a sixth-generation tour operator, said he was not too optimistic about an immediate revival as bookings for the summer were almost all canceled.
鈥淚f all goes well, it will take at least six months for tourism to revive,鈥 he said.
Ahmed, the hotels association official, said for the region鈥檚 prosperity. 鈥淭ourism needs peace. If (Kashmir) problem is not solved 鈥 maybe after two months, it will be again same thing.鈥
