SRINAGAR, May 14: A team of officers of the Tourism Department today conducted checks of various hotels in Srinagar city to check the services and their pricing being offered to visitors.
During the checking, the team of officers inspected some prominent hotels in the city. An official handout received by Ziraat Times said that several units were served notices under relevant clauses of J&K Registration of Tourist Trade Act for many of the deficiencies, including, “unjustifiable tariff slabs and fines were slapped on spot.”
The handout further reads, “It may be recalled that the Department, after receiving several complaints by tourists and locals of overcharging and other service deficiencies has constituted a Central Committee of officers to regulate the tourism services across Kashmir and ensure that proper services are delivered at reasonable prices.”
The drive of the Committee is planned to intensify in coming days, it said.
Hotel owners view these measures as an unnecessary interference with market dynamics and maintain that the practice would impact viability of their operations.
“We are deliberating what response we will have on this, considering that there are constitutional and legal guarantees, and that this practice is barely prevalent in other parts of the country”, a leading hotelier told Ziraat Times.
