An estimated1.32 crore tourists visited the hill state in 2010

Girdhari Lal Mahajan
New Delhi--An estimated1.32 crore tourists visited the hill state in 2010,
surpassing the 2009 record of 1.14 core which is highest annual tourist arrival in Himachal Pardesh so far.The number was 16.38 % per cent higher than 2009 and up 25 per cent from 2008, the previous record year. The number of foreign tourists alsoincreased from 4,00,583 in year 2009 to 4,54,851 during 2010 thereby registering an increase of 54,268(13.55%) in single year which is highest growth in terms of foreign tourists in the state. Most foreign visitors came from the United States, Canada, Australia and England .Director Tourim Dr Arun Sharma says that state has set up target to attract 1.50 crore tourist this year. According to an estimate additional around 300 crore rupees is likely to be injected into thestate economy every year through the tourism sector and if present growth continues in coming years the tourism sector is likely to contribute
1250 crore rupees GDP by the year 2015. The popular tourist destinations of Kullu , kangra and Shimla districtremained favourite as about fifty percent of all the tourist visited theseplaces . The famous hill station Shimla , manali , Dharamshala ,Dalhousie,
and kasauli were preferred by both Indian and foreigh tourists .The highest 1703757 (1656022 indian and 47735 foreing ) tourist visited the state in june 2010 while the the second highest1486074 (1444654 indian and 41420 foreign)
tourist visited the state in may 2010 and third highest 713890
(694428 indian and 19462 foreign )number of tourists visted the
state in December 2010. Total 3903721 number of tourist
visted the state during these three months in comparions to
-3350187tourists visited the state during these months in the year
2009 and the state registered an increase of 16 percentage in
tourist arrival during this period in the state .

The kangra Kullu and Shimla districts recorded highest number of tourists
with 1784158 (1692998 indian and 91160 foreing) in kangra, 2499549
(2366763 indian and 132786
foreing) in Kullu and 2608835 ( 2484562 indian and 124273 foreign)
tourist visiting the
shimal district during the year2010. The three districts were visited
by 6892542 tourists which is almost half of the total tourist arrival
in the state Dharamshala , the seat of his holiness
dalai lama recorded highest number of foreign VIP visitors in kangra district
while manali in Kullu district and queen of seven hills Shimla was another
favourite destinations for both Indian and foreign tourists
.Dharamshala the headquarter of kangra district also hosted two IPL
Matches for the first time in the state in April 2010 and attracted
around 50,000(fifty thousand) tourists during the IPL matches besides
fame and lightlight in national media
The snow bound tribal districts of Kinnaur and Lahaul spiti recorded
highest number of foreign visitors with with 85944 foreign tourist
visited the tribal areas during the year out of which 20429 foreigners
visted Kinnaur while 65515 foreign tourists visited the Lahaul spiti
during the year .The most of foreigners visited the tribal belt during
June Juy and August months as 53100 foreign tourist visited the Lahaul
spiti district during June ,July and August while 10493 foreing
tourist visited the tribal Kinnaur belt during this period . The
majority of the foreign tourists who visited the tribal belt were
below the age of 45 years and visited the tribal area for
mountaineering , expeditions and research work . The number of
foreign tourists in Lahaul spiti districts were 3 times more in
comparision to tribal Kinnaur areas as most of the foreign tourists
took route to leh ladakh via manali keylong through manali leh
highway and stayed in the Keylong, sarchu as transit point also and
in return journey used the same route for onwards journey to delhi
.Total 49183 foreign tourists visited the tribal lahaul spiti and
kinnaur districts in the months of June ,July and August 2009 out of
which the lahaul spiti district was preferred destinations with 41959
foreigner visited the area while 7224 foreigners visited the kinnaur
during the same period .
.
The state run HPTDC and various hotel associations offered attractive
packages for the tourists during december as result of which Hotel
reservations in popular tourist places like Shimla , dharmashala , manali ,
Dalhousie, chail and kasauli recorded around 90% occupancy ,while it was
recorded around 70% to 80% in other parts of the state during last week of
the December beginning from 25 th december to 31 st december when record
number of tourist visited the state to celebrate X –Mas and new year with
their families in quite peaceful atomosphere in order to refresh
themselves for facing challenges in coming year

The state has set up extensive network within and outside state to tap
the tourism
potential and has set up tourism informations and marketing offices
at 17 places including at Ahmedabad, Banglore, New Delhi
,Mumbai and Chennai to provide complete tourism informations and
instant reservations to its hotel units to
the visiting tourists .
The Tourism department put up exhibitions at Macau and Dubai at
international level and attended 25 tourism fairs organised by tours
and travel associations in india to promote the tourism at all level
during the year 2010 and plans to undertake extensive publicity
campaign by participating in international and domestic tourism fairs
and festival during year 2011.Director tourism Dr Arun Sharma said
that department which
has placed advertisements on all the major newspapers in north india will
be expanding its targeted advertisements to other prestigious
newspapers published
from southern states starting this year which sends most tourist to
hill state .It will start the 'Unforgettable Himachal' promotional
campaign in the FM radio and TV channels under which popular radio
channels like FM Radio, Radio Mirchi and Big F M Channels in the
state of karnataka, tamilnadu and gujrat would run the jingles
prepared in local languages to promote the hill state and visual
campaign will be launched in various television channels for Asia and
European countries so as to attract NRI and foreign tourists in the
state .