Tourism gets boost in Telangana after bifurcation

​Hyderabad: The tier-two cities like Warangal and Karimnagar in the state have become hot favourites for domestic tourists as the number of tourists has gone up in these places after the formation of Telangana as a separate state.

According to officials, the number of tourists has increased to tier-two cities like Warangal, Karimnagar and Khammam compared to Hyderabad, the state capital, which used to get more tourists in the past. As per the official figures, during the last two years the number of tourists thronging to Warangal has been on higher side. Over two crore tourists visited Warangal during the last four years. Karimnagar district was the second with more than one crore tourists followed by Mahbubnagar with over 90 Lakhs, Khammam with over 70 lakhs, and Nalgonda with 64 lakhs.

The officials said that there are a number of reasons for the increase in influx of tourists to the districts. The state government’s decision to accord ‘state festival’ to the tribal conglomeration ‘Sammakka-Saralamma jatara’, different development activities at tourist sites and encouragement to temple tourism, Pushkaralu are some of the reasons for the increase in the number of tourists to districts. The government has been promoting temple tourism and allocated huge amount of money for the development of temples such as Yadadri, Vemulawada, Bhadradri and others.     

The Tourism Department along with the Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation have taken up several initiatives and working hard to spread awareness among the travellers about the unexplored tourism destinations in Telangana, said a senior official.  Apart from the regular activities, the departments have focused on branding, which involved arrangement of stalls at airports, metro stations in major cities in the country. 

The officials conducted roadshows in different parts of India including northeast states. The department conducted roadshows in different places including Chandigarh, New Delhi, Dehradun, Kohima (Nagaland), Aizwal (Mizoram) and others.

The Bhoopalpally district has been witnessing boost in the tourists with the new-found ‘Gaddalasari waterfall’, which is said to be the third highest waterfall in the country. The place has been a hit with several techies from the city visiting the place during weekends and the response is such that the online bookings have increased for Gaddalasari waterfalls. 

Officials said tourism wise the year 2017 was the best year for Telangana as the city had hosted Ivanka Trump and other delegates of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, World Telugu Conference, SKAL International World Congress and several other business and trade seminars.

The tourism officials are now venturing on the unexplored places in the state. “The priorities have changed after Telangana became a separate state. The government wants to showcase the state to the world so that more and more tourists visit, which would help in direct and indirect employment,” said the official.