North Bengal witnesses major dip in number of tourists this festive season

Darjeeling: With the ongoing pandemic, It is "far from the madding crowd," for the tourists visiting North Bengal this holiday season. Bookings have started pouring in for homestays. However, the tourist flow to the hill towns does not look too promising. Under the new normal, the tourism trend is witnessing a change. "Tourists are preferring to travel in isolation and are avoiding crowded spaces. This time the preference is to stay put in one place for the entire holiday rather than hopping from one destination to the other. Following the taxing lockdown and the trauma, people are looking for healing experiences, far from the din and bustle of city life. They want to recoup both physically and mentally" observed Raj Basu, Convener, Association for Conservation and Tourism (ACT.)

Homestays in the Hills, Terai and Dooars have good bookings from October 22 which continues till November 7, informed Basu. "Majority of the 80 odd homestays of our area are booked to capacity from October 21 to 31st . Most of the tourists are from within the state" stated Norbu G Lama, President, Rungli Rungliot Homestay Owners' Association. The picture is just the opposite in the Hill towns. "We have enquiries but hardly any bookings. Most of the enquiries are for the period of one week starting from October 21. We have confirmed bookings for two to three rooms in that week" stated Bacchu Biswas. He runs a budget hotel in Darjeeling.

Similar is the situation for star category hotels. "We have bookings for 50% occupancy starting from October 21 to 27th. After that there are no queries" stated Suman Baraily, General Manager, Central Group of Hotels. There are around 3300 hotels in Sikkim and North Bengal. The number of homestays in North Bengal is around 2500. Every year 8 lakh domestic and 40,000 foreign tourists visit the Darjeeling Hills. With the negligible flow of tourists to the Hill towns, shops mainly catering to tourists, have been badly hit. "In a gap of two- three days we manage to sell. In normal times, we have a heavy rush in October and hardly get time to relax. This year it is just a long wait" stated Biren Gupta, owner of a store selling woolens and winter wear. It is the same for the stores that local residents frequent. "Though it is just a few days to Dussain (Dusserah- one of the major hill festivals when new clothes are bought) there are hardly any customers, We don't even have 10% of the sales we usually have during the festive season" stated Subala Pradhan, owner of a cloth store.

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