'1.5 cr tourists visited Chikmagalur in two years'

The number of tourists who visit Chikmagalur has been increasing over the years. Various places like Sringeri Sharadambe temple, Hornad Annapoorneshwari temple, Baba Budangiri have become the most preferred tourist destinations.

Records reveal that the number of tourists visiting Chikmagalur has crossed one and half crore in the last two years. According to the statistics available in the Tourism Department, the number of tourists who visited the district in 2010 is 85,81,493 while 2,615 foreigners have visited the district last year.

The number of tourists to visit the district this year between January and October is 60,61,685, where as the number of foreign visitors during the same period is 1,947. The Tourism Department officers hope that the number of visitors would be the highest during November and December and with this, year’s statistics is sure to over take the previous year’s record.

Sringeri is the most sought after destinations among all other places in the district. As many as 38.2 lakh visitors visited Sringeri last year while the number is 27.71 this year (till October).On the other hand, the number of visitors to visit Hornad last year is 23.8 lakh and this year it is 16.30 lakh.

As many as 15,25,532 tourists visited Balehonnur last year, 5.39 lakh visited Kalasa, 1,36,460 tourists visited Kemmannugundi and 38,501 tourists visited in and around Chikmagalur. In the last 10 months 1,28,833 tourists have visited Dattapeetha while 24,513 have visited the places in and around Chikmagalur.

As many as 80,276 tourists visited Kemmannugundi, 8,70,014 visited Balehonnur, 16.30 lakh visitors visted Hornad and 5.61 lakh visited Kalasa.