Hotels, travel companies expect domestic tourism to surge in hill stations this winter

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. As the Republic Day weekend nears,executives at The Khyber Himalayan Resort & Spa, 8,825 feet above sea level in Gulmarg, are preparing for a huge rush of tourists. After a disappointing winter at the start of 2024, the hotel expects to see most of its regular rooms sold out for the weekend, with only a handful of suites, priced at ₹3-7 lakh a night, likely to remain unavailable.

This isn’t an isolated case. Other resorts in Gulmarg – known as India’s ‘winter wonderland’ – and other snow-capped parts of the region such as Auli and Pahalgam are expecting tourism to make a comeback this year after a lack of snow hit tourism hard in 2024. The reasons for this include improved connectivity and a growing appetite for skiing, snowboarding and other winter sports – primarily driven by domestic travellers – hotel owners and other industry insiders told Mint.

Also read: India must envision and develop ambitious new tourism projects In Delhi, Sheena Singh, 41, is packing her bags for a four-day trip with her husband Karan over the Republic Day weekend. They are looking to book an independent villa at Pine N Clouds in Beerwah village, Jammu & Kashmir. “We like adventure travel and have bungee jumped before but this will be our introduction to skiing.

We are excited to learn something new," she said. Other hotspots such as Manali, Shimla and Leh-Ladakh are also drawing strong interest from winter travellers as the infrastructure improves, travel companies said. While Manali has seen some car accidents that caused traffic jams between Solang Valley and Atal Tunnel in Himachal Pradesh’s Rohtang, those planning to travel by air won’t have any such trouble.