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Published on : Thursday, October 29, 2020
The tourism and hospitality sector in Mysuru continues to suffer from the Covid-19 backlash, registering slow and less growth. The stakeholders are pessimistic about a comeback in spite of the unlocking and approaching of the festival season.
Tourism is yet to recover from the lockdown imposed due to the pandemic and tourist footfall remained insignificant during the just-ended Dasara which is an important period to promote tourism during normal times.
The famed Jamboo Savari was restricted to the palace premises with only around 300 people allowed. Even the people of Mysuru were not present for ensuring social distancing for combating COVID-19.
Narayana Gowda of the Mysuru Hotel Owners’ Association said that the bookings did not go beyond 25% at any point of time during Dasara compared to cent per cent occupancy during the pre-pandemic years. Many hotels have even stopped accepting bookings as they are considering selling the property. “Though a section of the media was projecting a huge turnout especially during nights, they were locals out to view the city illumination and did not make any impact on the tourism sector,” said Mr. Gowda.
The number of visitors to the Mysuru Palace which currently requires a ticketed entry, remains low. In all, 1,920 people, mainly locals – visited the palace on October 25, while 1,360 tickets were sold on the previous day. Earlier, the Mysuru Zoo remained open on Tuesdays considering large number of people visiting the attraction. But this year, the authorities closed the zoo even on Tuesdays due to poor footfalls.
The Mysuru palace normally witnesses around 3.5 million tourists every year, but this year, things are not the same anymore. The palace was closed during lockdown and it received 1250 tourists in June and 725 tourists in July and 10539 in August. There was a slight surge in September with 30,425 people visiting the palace. However, it is not enough to counterbalance the setback afflicting the tourism sector which fetches almost 1 lakh to 1.5 lakh jobs in Mysuru alone.