The state tourism department is facing people’s ire over the decision to shutdown social media handles promoting tourist destinations in Jammu region.
The decision of promotional wing of the tourism department to create a single social media account ‘J&K Tourism’ for all three regions of the state has not gone down well with residents. People expressed their displeasure at the decision on social media, especially Twitter, urging the government to rollback the decision.
Many alleged that the promotional activity for Jammu and Ladakh regions was being ‘deliberately’ stopped at the expenses of the Valley. Hash tag #Jammutourism was being promoted on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to show displeasure.
“Closing social media account of Jammu tourism and keeping only one account for both directorates is detrimental to the growth of tourism potential of all three regions,” Manu Khajuria, a freelance writer and Dogra activist, wrote on Twitter.
We recognised Mr Bhagat even as we read the poster behind him mocking #Jammu #Ladakh 🙂 pic.twitter.com/LF0fw05goP
— Manu Khajuria 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳 (@KhajuriaManu) March 26, 2019
An appeal @jandkgovernor
#SaveJammuTourism pic.twitter.com/tcN1jiRWMa
— Manu Khajuria 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳 (@KhajuriaManu) March 28, 2019
My message to @jandkgovernor and @JammuTourism @JandKTourism Please #SaveJammuTourism pic.twitter.com/cQqCUmsamG
— vasukhosla 🇮🇳 (@vasukhosla) March 29, 2019
This is something which was not expected from tourism department..@jandkgovernor #standbyjammu #SaveJammuTourism pic.twitter.com/eQClFwaVgX
— Prananshu Sharma (@PrananshuS) March 29, 2019
“When it comes to advertisements and mega road shows, only Kashmir is being projected,” said Sachin Sharma, a travel agent.
There was a deep-rooted anger among people as despite the fact that more than one crore pilgrims-cum-tourists visited Jammu and Ladakh regions and Kashmir received only about 10 lakh tourists annually due to militancy, the desired focus was not on promoting all places, the stakeholders said.
Read also: Is Kashmir tourism jealous of Jammu?
When contacted, Director Tourism (Jammu), OP Bhagat, said the intent was to create a single platform for promotion of all three regions. “The decision was to have a single social media account which can handle promotional activities better. The media wing of each directorate has access to that account so that they can upload pictures, videos and information about tourist places of each region,” Bhagat added.
[With inputs from online reports]
