VIJAYAWADA: Despite resuming activity a month ago, the tourism sector is finding it difficult to attract enough tourists. While several activities are to be restarted due to a variety of reasons, hotels, resorts and many tourist spots are not receiving much number of visitors daily.
“When compared to the corresponding period last year, we received only 30 per cent of tourists this year. People are still hesitating to come out and visit tourist spots or participate in the tourism-related activities,” said Pravin Kumar, AP Tourism Development Corporation MD and AP Tourism Authority CEO. Belum Caves, Undavalli Caves, Borra Caves along with Kondapalli, Kondavedu and Chandragiri Forts are some of the places that are getting some tourists,” he added.
Regarding boating activities, a revenue generator, Pravin Kumar told The New Indian Express, “The security checks et al were completed for all boats and we started small-scale activities as well. But the boating activity stopped following the Irrigation Department’s instructions in view of the floods in Krishna and Godavari rivers. We are optimistic that they may resume after a week or 10 days.” Stoppage of boating activity has impacted the tourist footfall at Bhavani Island.
With no profits yet, the industry is bearing the brunt of the pandemic. “Such is the condition now, we paid our employees only 50 per cent of their salaries this month. The earning we get now are the funds paid by the government for the food provided by our hotels to quarantine centres. There are almost no earnings through core tourism activities. It will take another two months to generate revenue per se, and generate profits after four to five months,” Pravin Kumar said.
The operators of adventure and rural tourism have not resumed full-scale operations as they are still trying to figure out how to implement the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the government. “It is difficult to conduct treks or other activities by maintaining social distance. During a trek, we keep the group members closer to us as a majority of them are not aware of the routes. We are trying to figure out how best to resume the activities adhering to the SOP,” said Satyam Gopi, who arranges treks in different parts of the State.