The Himachal Pradesh government is planning an international airport to bring the state on the tourism map of high-end foreign visitors to encash the popularity of Himachal Pradesh amongst the foreign tourists,
With an eye on tapping into this segment, the government has identified three sites at Kandaghat in Solan district and Nadaun in Hamirpur district. The tourism and civil aviation department has already submitted weather data to the Airports Authority of India on these as it will be a crucial factor in selecting the site.
At present, the state has three airports at Kullu, Kangra and Shimla, but poor air connectivity forces majority of tourists to travel by road.
The state has witnessed a substantial rise in footfall of foreign tourists in last five years. If 2.07 lakh visitors from abroad came to Himachal Pradesh in 2005, the number went up to 4.85 lakh in 2011. But the absence of an international airport is keeping high-end foreign tourists away.
Chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said an international airport will give a fillip to the state\\\'s tourism industry. \\\"Himachal has a vast potential to attract foreign tourists, especially high-spenders.\\\'\\\'
With the international airport likely to cost between Rs 2,000 and Rs 3,000 crore, public private partnership (PPP) mode has been mooted for the project as per a report in TOI.
Pointing out how the lack of an international airport is making the state lose out on the upper-crust visitors, Tourism and civil aviation director Arun Sharma said, \\\"around 30000-40000 Sheikhs from Arabian countries visit Mumbai every year to enjoy the monsoon and they can easily come to Himachal.\\\'\\\' He said the Sheikhs had mooted the idea of a chartered flight to Chandigarh or Pathankot, but this was not possible due to security reasons.
\\\"The number of high-end religious tourists too would swell once religious places are covered by the heli-taxi scheme, and we are expecting 20% increase in this segment alone once the international airport is ready,\\\" he added.
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