Foreign tourists denied entry for horse race in prohibited area

JAISALMER: The efforts being made to attract foreign tourists in Rajasthan got a blow when administration and tourism officers took a decision in which they did not allow foreigners to attend a programme of Desert Festival.
This has disappointed hundreds of foreign tourists, tour operators, travel agents. In the third day of Desert Festival, district administration and tourism department did not allow foreign tourists to attend horse race organised at lanena Rann, 20 km from Jaisalmer stating it to be a prohibited area. Hundreds of tourists due to this order could not attend the race while no such thing was mentioned in the invitation. The wrong decision has adversely affected the image of Rajasthan tourism. For the first time, horse race was added to the festival and was mentioned in the invitation by the tourism department.

SP Gaurav Yadav told collector K C Meena that the venue where horse race is being organised is prohibited area and foreign citizens cannot go without permission. On this, district administration ordered to take permission letter from the collectorate. When hoteliers and tour operators came to know about this there

was resentment as many tourists were taking interest in going to see the race. Later, the hoteliers stopped the foreign tourists to go to the venue and many tourists who did not have information about this left for the venue and were stopped enroute by the police.

Yadav said that he had informed the collector about the venue being prohibited area and foreigners cannot go without administrative permission. The home ministry has issued gazette notification in this regard and department has followed it.

Meena said, when he got information about the venue of horse race being prohibited, by then it was too late. It takes lot of time to make that area free zone for foreigners and in such situation it was messaged that those who want to go have to take permission from the collector office.

He said, in coming days, lanela will be made free zone and it is suitable place for desert festival and other programmes. There is no best place except this for organising horse race. On the other hand, large number of tour operators and tourism businessmen expressed resentment and boycotted the event.

Jaisalmer golden city tourist association president Prithvi Raj said that he got many phones from foreign tourists, tour operators and there was resentment among them over this decision. It was a very disappointing decision because no tourist has so much time to go and stand in line to get the permission. He said this will have a very negative impact on tourism as other venue could have been selected for the race. There are many places for organising horse race and tourism department has done its whims and fancies and did not aware the district administration. A hotelier Manvendra Singh said, if there was ban on foreign tourists to attend horse race then it could have been mentioned on the invitation. It was not mentioned that it was open for all.

A travel agent I B Singh said, the foreign tourists are quite disappointed over this decision as they came to Jaisalmer to see desert festival by spending lakhs of rupees.