Cauvery protests hit weekend tourism in Mysuru

Mysuru's tourism sector feeling pinch of Cauvery crisis. Mandya Bandh caused 50-55% occupancy rate in hotels, compared to 100% usually. Tourists from Bengaluru played it safe due to fear of being stranded. Stakeholders concerned that Dasara will be scaled down, impacting livelihoods of 80-100K people. Pre-pandemic, 3.5-3.8M tourists visited Mysuru, but COVID-19 hit hard. 3.3M tourists expected in 2022-23, but Cauvery crisis may impact this.

The tourism sector in Mysuru is feeling the pinch of the Cauvery crisis with Mandya Bandh resulting in a perceptible decline in the tourists’ footfall during the weekend.

The Mandya Bandh was called on Saturday, September 23, to protest the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu and the cascading impact was on the tourist flow as well.

‘’Since the last 4 months, weekends starting from Friday evening till Monday morning used to result in 100 per cent occupancy of almost all the hotels in Mysuru. But for the first time in the recent past, the occupancy rate dipped to about 50 per cent to 55 per cent,’’ said C. Narayanagowda, president of Mysuru Hotel Owners Association.

There are nearly 160 hotels ranging from luxury segment to those providing standard accommodation and the city has 10,000 rooms by way of rooms. While it is difficult to find accommodation during weekends, there was no such rush this week due to the Mandya Bandh.

Though the Bengaluru-Mysuru Expressway was not blocked and was out of bounds for the farmers, weekend tourists from Bengaluru played it safe. In the past, people have experienced the agony of being stranded on highways due to bandh and though traffic on the expressway was not affected tourists, perhaps, did not want to take a chance, said Mr. Narayanagowda.

Palace Board Deputy Director T.S. Subramanya said the number of tourists on Saturday was less compared to the last or the earlier weeks and attributed it to Mandya Bandh.

Coupled with the Cauvery agitation, the stakeholders are perturbed that this year’s Dasara will be scaled down as officially announced by the Mysuru district in charge Minister H.C. Mahadevappa.