MYSURU: The searing heat has been driving tourists to hill stations to stay cool. Holiday resorts at hill stations have been seeing a surge in tourist arrivals for over a week now, with the start of summer vacations.
Tour operators in Bengaluru and Mysuru maintain that bookings to the hill stations had been on the rise and enquiries for package tours to resorts in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have also shot up, reports The Hindu.
People in the tour and travel business in Mysuru a claim 40% hike in bookings to hill stations in the last few days. They hope to see more bookings in the days head, perhaps till the onset of monsoon.
“Hill stations have always been the most sought after destinations for holidaymakers in summer. Hotel and taxi bookings at the hill stations have been overwhelming. Mysuru is a passage for many of the hill stations and the city is also one of the beneficiaries with tourists’ stopover,” said B.S. Prashanth, president-elect, Mysuru Travels Association. He told The Hindu that summer holidays for children had been one of the reasons for soaring bookings.
Madikeri, Kemmangundi, Chikkamagaluru, Bababudangiri (Karnataka); Udhagamandalam, Coonoor and Kodaikanal (Tamil Nadu) and Thekkady, Munnar and Kumarakom (Kerala) were among the popular hill stations in the Southern circuit, Mr. Prashanth said.
Many tourists from the northern states have booked homestays and resorts in the ‘land of coffee’. En route to hill stations like Ooty, tourists were stopping over at Bandipur to glimpse the wildlife at Bandipur Tiger Reserve and also in Nagarahole National Park (towards Madikeri). Cauvery Nisargadhama (Kushalnagar) and Golden Temple (Bylakuppe), Bhagamandala and Talacauvery are the other tourist attractions.
