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Tourism may take time to recover from quake shock

By Zulfiqar Ghuman

ISLAMABAD: The tourism industry may take a couple of years to revive since the October 8 earthquake badly damaged the whole infrastructure in the northern parts of the country and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, sources in the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) told Daily Times.

“Tourism, already a fragile industry with 0.2 percent contribution to the Gross National Product (GNP), suffered a huge set back as most of the tourist destinations have been destroyed in the earthquake,” the sources said, adding that “it will take a couple of years to attract the tourists if the government does the rehabilitation on war footings.”

They said Balakot, Batagram and valleys including Kaghan, Naran and Shugran were the hot tourist destinations in the NWFP, while Neelum and Jhelum valleys were the main tourist attractions in the AJK during the summer season. All these areas were the worst hit by the earthquake.

“Domestic tourists from the Punjab and Sindh used to visit these areas in a greater number with only 12 to 15 percent proceeding to Northern Areas along with adventure loving foreign tourists,” they added.

Reports of epicentre shifting to Hazara division and continuous aftershocks would play a role in keeping tourists away from these resorts, they said.

They added snowfall and winter rains would compound problems hampering development work and rehabilitation process in these areas.

The PTDC official said the main thrust of tourism in near future would be on Murree and Galiyat while some would go to Saidu Sharif and Swat.

He said that as the domestic tourism was likely to see a slump, the foreign tourist receipts were likely to increase because of a lot of foreign relief workers coming to Pakistan during the same period.

The international marathon and Basant festivals in Lahore were two other attractions for foreign tourists. Pakistan earned Rs 2.5 billion last year and has set a target of Rs 3 billion on Basant this year.

“This year two Basant festivals — on February 5 and a three-day Basant from March 3 to 5 — will be held at official level, which is likely attract a large number of foreign tourists,” he added.d.

The Tourism Ministry has planned a calendar of activities to celebrate 2006 ‘Visit Pakistan Year’, he said adding that if it organised all the events as planned, it would surely help revive tourism in the country.

He said Pakistan earned $385 million last year when 648,000 foreign tourists including Pakistanis with foreign nationalities visited the country. “This amount was likely to increase by a considerable margin but the earthquake turned everything around,” he added.

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