SRINAGAR, INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR – A tulip garden in Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital, has been transforming tourism in the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir.
“The garden has extended Kashmir’s tourist season by more than a month,” says Javid Ahmad Shah, caretaker of the tulip garden and district officer for the Jammu and Kashmir Department of Floriculture.
Readers of Lonely Planet India recently voted Jammu and Kashmir the best destination emerging in the country for 2012. One reason for this may be the state’s tulip garden.
Kashmir is home to the historical Mughal gardens, which have long drawn tourists from around the world. But its more recently developed tulip garden on the banks of Dal Lake has quickly become a major tourist attraction.
With tulip bulbs imported from the Netherlands, the garden was developed in 2006 with the aim of promoting floriculture and attracting more tourists to the state. Shah says it is Asia’s largest tulip garden, spanning 30 acres.
Kashmir typically witnesses a heavy rush of tourists starting in early May, but Shah says many tourists now arrive as early as mid-March, when the garden opens to the public. Indian tourists frequent the gardens, and they have also charmed foreign visitors as well.
Many Indian tourists say the vast stretch of blooming tulips creates a heavenly feeling. Anita Sharma, on holiday with her family from Uttar Pradesh, another state in northern India, says she has been dreaming of visiting the Kashmir Valley for years.
“The garden is definitely breathtaking, and people should come to see this,” she says.
The gardens recently closed for the season, but tourism officials are already planning for the future. They say they have plans to more than double the size of the garden, developing it to span 75 acres.
