Nainital asks thousands of tourists to go back amid COVID-19 fears

In breaking news, the Nainital administration barred nearly 5000 tourists from getting to the hill station due to overcrowding and COVID-19 fears. The authorities said that most of the tourist’s could not show their negative RT-PCR test, so they were stopped. Also, there wasn’t any parking space left in the hill station.

Nainital’s Senior Superintendent of Police said that the number of tourists visiting the hill station has considerably increased, but people without negative COVID reports are not allowed to enter Nainital.
With tourist hotspots opening in the country, thousands of people are planning trips in the hills to escape summer heat. This has caused overcrowding at a number of destinations, including Nainital and Mussoorie in Uttarakhand and Manali in Himachal. Hotels in all these hill stations are packed to their full capacity, and are left with little to no parking space.


As per the Uttarakhand tourism department and police, Mussoorie and Nainital recorded a tourist footfall of more than 10000 last weekend. These two are the most famous hill towns in Uttarakhand and are visited by thousands of tourists every year. But, given the pandemic situation, the economy of all these hill towns has been shaken due to an absence of tourists.
Though most stakeholders in the tourism industry are happy with the overcrowding scenario, it is certainly a worrisome situation as far as Coronavirus is concerned.

President of Uttarakhand Hotel Association, Sandeep Saini said, “It has been months since local hotels had a good business. The industry has suffered a lot and thousands have lost their livelihood. However, everybody has to be careful about Covid guidelines.”