Tourism stakeholders want Mysuru Winter Festival postponed

This is to stagger the visitors’ footfall and drive business

Stakeholders in the tourism sector have sought postponement of the Mysuru Winter Festival so as to stagger the tourist footfall over two months.

This is also to ensure that there is no overcrowding of the city besides enhancing the visitors’ experience so that it is a win-win situation for both the tourists and the stakeholders.

The Mysuru Winter Festival is slated to be held from December 24 to January 2 and the Mysuru Palace Board will conduct a flower show on the palace premises. A speciality will be the depiction of Kashi Vishwanath temple using flowers and arrangement of nearly 25,000 flower pots to lure the tourists.

The palace will also be illuminated for 2 hours daily from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. while the Police Band will perform on the palace premises on December 31 till midnight followed by fireworks to ring in the new year. There will also be cultural programmes at the palace every evening and the festival is expected to draw a huge crowd as it being held after a gap of two years when all activities were put on hold due to the pandemic.

However the stakeholders who welcomed the return of the Mysuru Winter Festival have pointed out that December anyway was a peak season as far as tourists arrival was concerned and hence the festival should be held sometime in the second week of January coinciding with Sankranti.

The Hotel Owners Association president C. Narayana Gowda told media persons here on Friday that the Christmas and year-end holidays results in a veritable rush in and around Mysuru and tourists struggle to find accommodation. This has been the trend since many years and the footfall tend to be high even without any cultural programmes or special efforts to lure the tourists with festivals.

Hence it would be in the fitness of things for the authorities to postpone the Mysuru Winter Festival to coincide with Sankranti, he added.