Srinagar: Director Tourism Kashmir and Managing Director, J&K Cable Car Corporation, Syed Qamar Sajad, on Wednesday said that Kashmir’s tourism rebound, following a short recession phase in footfall, has entered a period of renewed confidence with tourist arrivals, market movement and travel sentiment now matching the peak footfall recorded in April 2025.

Sajad said that the recovery is the outcome of sustained outreach, ground-level stakeholder coordination, and seasonal support through winter snowfall, with a parallel emphasis on environmental protection and high-altitude health safety regulations. He said major tourism upgrades, particularly at Affarwat, are already mandated for 2026. “The current tourist rush is the same as it was in April,” he said.

On being asked about the speed of recovery, Sajad said the ‘recession’ in Kashmir’s tourism was a temporary slowdown triggered by an incident that briefly dented traveler confidence, leading to a short slump in bookings and footfall before revival measures restored momentum. He said the six months that followed this phase were focused on a wide-spectrum confidence restoration campaign, spanning domestic markets and foreign travel circuits, driven jointly by administrative outreach and stakeholder alignment. The effort, he said, was not to generate a new tourism impulse, but to repair a disrupted sentiment curve. “We worked on rebuilding tourist trust at both national and........

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