The lack of infrastructure and negative propaganda has brought the hotel industry of scenic Valley Swat, into standstill position, inflicting heavy losses on the sector in the tourists attracting area, sources told Business Recorder on Tuesday.
The district has about 800 large and small hotels and restaurants in the district, which are presenting a deserted look as majority of the tourists from different parts of the country instead of coming to the former major attractive place for the tourists to other hill stations in Hazara (NWFP) and Murree in Punjab.
"The basic cause behind this shortfall in the arrival of tourists to Swat Valley is due to the deteriorating conditions of the road infrastructure and lack of the other communication facilities like mobile phones and cable television networks," said Haji Zahid Khan, president, All Swat Hotels Association.
"The roads leading to the Valley are in such a bad conditions that none of the visitors could dare to go beyond district Mardan on the main Mardan-Malakand Road," he added.
Although, the provincial government has given a deadline of June 30 to the National Highway Authority (NHA) for the completion of the work on the roads in the former defunct Malakand Division. However, the completion of the work is even not possible in the next financial year.
The repairement and improvement work on the Nowshera-Swat Highway under the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-sponsored Malakand Rural Support Programme (MRDP). The objective of the project is alleviation of poverty from the area.
District Swat a tourist valley is in the limelight since 1994 with the emergence of Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariah Mohammadi (TNSM), an extremist organisation banned by the government of Pakistan in 2001. The head of the movement, which is presently imprisoned after leading thousands of volunteers to enter Afghanistan to wage Jehad along with former Taleban rulers against United States and its allies in late 2001.
However, according to the people of the area and hotel industry, the activists of the movement are mostly peaceful people and have never intervene in the matters of the tourists arrival in the valley.
"The matter has been flashed by some vested interest, who presented picture of the promotion of religious extremism in the area," added Khan. The negative propaganda, he said, is not only affecting the hotel industry of the district rather the economy of the whole country.
Furthermore, he said that the rumours of the possibility of the hiding of most wanted Osama Bin Laden was also a big setback for the tourism of the area this year. Last year, the coverage of the news regarding flood in the River Swat by both print and electronic-media also kept tourists at bay from the area.
"Hundreds of tourists last year cancelled their hotels' reservations after reading and watching flood-related news in the media," the hotelier said, adding that the propaganda inflicted a loss of Rs 0.2 million on even small hotels and restaurants of the area.
The sector is providing 15,000 direct employment and more than 25,000 indirectly. Similarly, the grave situation is also affecting transport and trade sectors of the district. Tourism is the only potential sector of the district and due to the lack of raw material the establishment of industrial units is not feasible in the area.
Valley Swat has big attraction for the tourists as it has 20,000 feet and 19,700 feet peaks of the Mankial and Falakser while another Elam mountain has religious attractions for Buddhists and Hindus. The area is rich of the old relics of Buddhism and the archaeologists had found relics of more than 1,400 workshop places of the Buddhism on only on the bank of River Swat. The area is also known as the incarnation place of Buddha and then the religion was expanded to China and Japan. The area also has its own historical importance as the names of the majority of the towns and villages have been derived from the Greek and the name of the Buddhists era is still alive in the area.
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