• Online viewership sees manifold increase
• Hotels, resorts report near-full occupancies
• Traffic to Krishna Raja Sagar Dam diverted
• Huge demand for evening Ambaari trip

Mysore/Mysuru: Thousands of domestic tourists have arrived in Mysuru for Dasara and the evening commute is becoming cumbersome. The streets are chock-a-block as the city is lit up bright with 102.9 km illumination covering 87 circles. Following the demand, the duration of illumination has been extended by one hour till 10.30 pm from tonight.

All the 412 hotels, resorts and tourist accommodations have reported near-full occupancy and have been getting enquiries for bookings till Oct. 17. By Oct. 14, all 10,000-odd rooms will be booked including luxury and budget hotels.

The only drawback is that there is not a single foreign tourist in the city owing to COVID.

Today being a second Saturday holiday, all the places of tourist interest in and around Mysuru were teeming with people.

Hotel bookings have started looking up since the past two to three days and more tourists are coming from Oct. 10 (tomorrow) for a five to six-day trip even to neighbouring places like Kodagu and Chikkamagalur. Many are also having a brief stop-over in Mysuru to see the illumination and are heading to Kodagu, Bandipur, Nagarahole and Kabini.

Online viewership

Along with offline tourism, online viewership of Dasara events has seen a marked increase. On Oct. 7, when Dasara was inaugurated, it was live-streamed across all social media platforms. On that particular date, 93,000 people saw the inauguration live from atop Chamundi Hill through Facebook and YouTube. On the same day in the evening, 36,000 people watched the cultural programmes at Mysore Palace. On Oct. 8, over 31,000 people saw the cultural programmes online.

According to Manu from Skyway International Travels who maintains the Dasara website, earlier, over 10,000 people used to visit the website daily and watch programmes. “Now we have over 35,000 unique visitors to the site every day and there is a great potential to develop Dasara as an International tourist event,” he told Star of Mysore this morning.

Four ‘Ambaaris’

Ambaari, the hop-on hop-off double-decker bus, is now running to its full capacity and there is a huge demand for evening slots and two more additional buses have been introduced to the existing fleet of two. Tourists are climbing up the buses and travelling on the rooftop to get the glimpse of the illuminated surroundings.

Road diversion to KRS Dam

With tourist footfalls to KRS Dam in Srirangapatna taluk increasing, the Mandya district administration has come up with road diversion from Mysuru from Oct.7 till Oct.18. According to an order passed by Mandya Deputy Commissioner, all vehicles coming from Mandya and Yelwal sides to KRS Dam will have to pass through Belagola and reach the parking lot located close to the reservoir’s boating point from 3 pm till 11 pm till Oct.18.

After viewing the Dam, tourists can exit by travelling on the new bridge built across the river and passing through North Bank, Katteri and Yelekere Handpost to reach K.R. Pet-Mysuru main road from where they can proceed further towards Mysuru, Mandya or Bengaluru. Likewise, vehicles coming to the Dam from Mysuru side should travel on the new bridge and take a turn to North Bank and pass through Katteri and Yelekere Handpost to reach K.R. Pet-Mysuru main road from where they can proceed further.