Published on : Tuesday, May 7, 2019
As per statistics from the Palace Board, 37,40,839 tourists visited Mysuru palace from April 1, 2018, to March 31, 2019, as against the 38,61,162 who had visited it during the corresponding period (April 1 to March 31) in 2017-18. This is based on the number of tickets sold for the palace entry.
However, these are conservative figures and there are numerous weekend-visitors to the city who keep afloat the tourism sector but there are no official figures on this.
Tourism expert K. Nagapathi avers that notwithstanding a slight dip, it is an encouraging sign as it is for the second consecutive year that the tourist traffic to Mysuru has clocked past the 3.5-million mark. Statistics indicate that the number of tourists who visited the palace in 2016-17 was 33,24,454 while 35,67,940 visited it during 2015-16. The numbers hovered between 3.3 million and 3.5 million from 2012-13 to 2015-16.
Of the 3.7 million tourists who visited the palace, only 48,022 were foreign tourists. This means the tourism sector in Mysuru continues to be fuelled by domestic travellers.
“While this is a far cry from achieving a target of at least five million in the next few years, what is significant is that Mysuru, for the second consecutive year, has played host to more than 3.5 million tourists,” said Prof. Nagapathi.
These figures also make Mysuru palace the second most visited monument in the country after the Taj Mahal. As per various records and the official website of UP Tourism, the Taj Mahal draws around seven million tourists every year. The only difference is that the Taj Mahal falls under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) while Mysuru palace does not.
Tags: Mysuru, tourist arrivals