The most important resort for winter Tourism in Kashmir at the moment is Gulmarg. Usually after autumn, the tourism activity in the valley used to come to an abrupt end. In fact, Kashmir tourism had always remained confined to summer from early March till end September. Winter used to be totally dead till Gulmarg was revived as a winter sports resort in early sixties of the last century. Even in the last century Gulmarg was considered by the British an important ski resort this side of Suez. In fact, the Ski Club of India was established by Major Metcarp and Major Headow, two British Army Officers, in 1927 at Gulmarg. Mr.B.N.Pestonji was its first Secretary. Skiing had been introduced as a sport in Gulmarg area almost at the same time as it had started in Alps. Those days all ski competitions were held at Khilanmarg and the pony track was kept open throughout the winter. There were two major events, the Christmas and Easter Competitions. The attendance in the open competition held at Christmas in 1938 was over 500. Gulmarg had two 100 room hotels and hundreds of chalets. There was a Cinema and a Golf Club House with two eighteen hole courses. Summer was a golfer’s paradise in Gulmarg. In early sixties of the last century, the Government of India, Ministry of Tourism, prepared a project for converting Gulmarg into an international ski resort. A master plan was prepared by the famous architect, late Joseph Allen Stein. The project was aided by UNDP who appointed Mr. Otto Santener of Austria as an advisor. A ski school was set up to train Indian National Ski Instructors. Bartal Neumayr was the first Director of the Ski School. However, with an impressive start, the project slowly got stuck in bureaucratic wrangling and could not achieve the goal of becoming an international level ski resort. In the present context, it is adventure tourism like skiing in Gulmarg which has tremendous scope. However, there is urgent need to improve the winter sports facilities especially the ski slopes, ski lifts, equipment hire shop. In addition, Gulmarg needs international level ski rescue patrols, avalanche control and similar other facilities. There is good possibility of attracting national ski teams from many countries for training in Gulmarg. However, to achieve all these goals, the head of the resort or for that matter the person heading tourism organisation itself needs to be a person fully conversant with these activities. In most of the European and other places, these activities are undertaken under the supervision of professionals. In view of the present reality of Gulmarg having remained only tourism activity in winter, the government needs to give serious consideration to improving the facilities, as well as enhancing the manpower.
Gulmarg Winter Tourism Facilities
