Foreign tourist flow to Mysore picks up

The festival season of Dasara and subsequent months of November-December is seeing some good inflow of foreign tourists to Mysore over the previous years.

While reservations are picking up for the nine-day Dasara, group and individual bookings are brisk in leading star hotels in the tourist city.

"Bookings started early this year, compared to the Dasara of the previous years," said a leading hotel reservation manager.

"We have bookings on hand from October 20-23, the peak days of Dasara. For rest of the days, it is picking up," she said. The Ayudha Pooja is on October 22 followed by the grand Vijaya Dashami procession on October 23.

"We have both group and individual bookings for the season," the reservation manager of Southern Star said.

However, according to an office-bearer of the Travel Agents Association, Mysore, the foreign tourist inflow will be good in the months of November and December. Besides preferring Mysore and a few other tourist centres, they have on their itinerary the Kabini jungle lodges as well.

"Bookings on hand show groups start arriving from October-end and continue till almost December-end. This time, we have tourists from countries like South Africa and Switzerland, apart from the normal flow from England, France and some other European countries," he told the Business Standard.