“They had bookings for two days in a local hotel, but they stayed only for a day and then returned. Tourists are afraid of visiting the place because of the uncertainty,” he said, adding, “The closure of tourist sites by the administration has also caused fear among tourists, and they are hesitant to travel to the Valley.”Around 3,500 ponywalas in Pahalgam, who rely entirely on tourism for survival, have been without work for about a month.“There are 1,900 registered and about 1,500–1,700 unregistered ponywalas in Pahalgam. All of them depend on tourism for their livelihood and survival. With Pahalgam now looking deserted and tourists not visiting the place, not a single ponywala has worked in the past month since the Baisaran attack,” said one ponywala.He said he had sold 10 marlas of land and established a homestay for tourists, but with no visitors, “we are incurring losses, and we don’t know how long we will have to bear them.”A cab operator, Zahoor Ahmed, said they have been sitting idle for a month now, as tourist footfall has dropped to near zero and all bookings were cancelled after the April 22 attack.Tourism stakeholders are now pinning their hopes on a revival of the tourism season during the upcoming Amarnath Yatra, which begins on July 3 and will conclude on August 9, coinciding with Raksha Bandhan.
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