Holidays bring hordes of tourists to city

Palace, Mysore Zoo and KRS were teeming with people on weekend

 Thousands of tourists thronged Mysore and surrounding places on the weekend making the hoteliers and happy ahead of Dasara.

The major tourist destinations in the region saw huge crowds and buses to these destinations ran full. Be it the Ambavilas Palace, the Zoo and Krishnaraja Sagar outside Mysore, all beckoned the visitors like never before for this time of the year. The inflow started from Friday, the Id holiday. The extended non - working days on account of Ganesh Chaturthi on Saturday and Sunday gave an opportunity for the travellers to explore the popular tourist spots. There was absolutely no parking space left around areas near Palace and the Chamarajendra zoological gardens in the city through the days. These places was abuzz with visitors from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and local tourists from Bangalore and other places within the State. The Palace saw long queues outside the ticket counter. The vehicular parking that was only restricted to the parking area outside south gate of palace was extended to Doddakere maidan near exhibition grounds. The authorities had to make arrangement for the parking near the Karikal Thotti gate of Palace, infront of City Corporation office too, to accommodate the vehicles.

Visitors found it tough to find an empty parking spot near the Mysore zoo, as the parking ground infront of the Zoo was fully occupied. The scene was similar at Brindavan gardens too which saw good inflow of tourists on Saturday and Sunday.

Traffic jam

The flow of tourists posed a challenge on the traffic front. The important roads surrounding the palace, the zoo and the KRS were all jammed as vehicles crawled on these roads.

Rajendra, President of Hotel Owners’ Association told Deccan Herald that the hotels saw good bookings and occupancy rate this weekend. But, majority of the tourists were day visitors. However, good inflow on the weekend is a good sign for forthcoming Dasara season, he said.  It is one month to go for dasara celebration and the mood is upbeat in the city to give a red carpet welcome to arriving guests. The flow of tourists in large numbers on the weekend has ushered into a hope of making the nine-day Dasara festivities a huge success this year.