City gears up to handle tourist rush ahead of Christmas and New Year’s eve

Mysore/Mysuru: After staying away from New Year’s eve celebrations for the past two years due to COVID pandemic, the people are now out to celebrate Christmas (Dec.25) and welcome the New Year (2023), which is just eight days away, in a grand manner.

With tourist footfalls likely to see a huge surge as the year 2022 draws to a close, the stakeholders of the tourism industry in Mysuru are keeping a lot of hopes of making it big this year-end tourist season. They are anticipating a large turnout of tourists and visitors due to Christmas holidays and the Palace Flower Show.

Usually, December is a busy month for the tourism industry for the reason that the School holidays and favourable weather encourages tourists to visit Mysuru, which is one of the foremost tourist destinations of the State. However, the COVID pandemic had put brakes on December tourism in the last two years.

With Christmas holiday season setting in, tourist footfalls to Mysuru Zoo, Palace, Brindavan Gardens etc., is witnessing a steady rise over the past couple of days. Study tours and excursions by educational institutions is one of the reasons for the big rise in tourist footfalls. Unable to conduct study trips and excursions due to pandemic in 2020 and 2021, Schools and Colleges from across the State are now organising educational tours in a big way and Mysuru, being a top most tourist destination, is obviously one of the places in their itinerary.

The trips are not limited to students from within the State. Study tours for students of neighbouring States like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are also on the rise and Mysuru continues to be the major beneficiary.

Expressing happiness over increasing tourist footfalls, Mysuru Hotel Owners Association President C. Narayanagowda said that the tourism industry in Mysuru is excited over the tourist rush over the past few days after a gap of two years.

Pointing out that 85 percent of the 10,500 rooms available in Mysuru have been booked for the year-end season, he said there will be no doubt that the remaining rooms too will be booked as the year-end celebration nears. Noting that Hotel and Restaurant owners are happy over returning to normal business post the pandemic, he said that the last time the city celebrated New Year was in 2019. However, the number of tourists is expected to rise by at least 20 percent this year, he said adding that the city’s hotel and hospitality industry has geared up to welcome the tourists.

Continuing, Narayanagowda said there are 425 hotels, including 200 vegetarian and 130 non-vegetarian hotels. This apart, there are 60 bar and restaurants and 25 star category hotels, which can cater to the needs of tourists.

Noting that the city collectively has 10,500 rooms, he said that the tariff for each room varies from Rs.600 to Rs.30,000 a day. Reiterating that there has been a great demand for rooms in all categories in hotels and lodges, he asserted that the city hotel industry is getting prepared to handle the year end tourist boom.

New Year celebrations

Meanwhile, it is learnt that 40 hotels and 20 clubs in city have made arrangements for New Year celebrations. These facilities are hosting parties and other celebratory programmes and have started issuing tickets of varying prices. The organising hotels have been receiving good public response for New Year parties, going by the ticket bookings and the surge in demand for tickets.