That makes Dubai an interesting play. A Dubai-Srinagar flight would take half the time of a Dubai-Geneva flight. A weekend in Kashmir costs a fraction of that in Switzerland, promoted as a destination by Bollywood whose stars are among a growing tribe of wealthy Indians who have second homes in Dubai. Dubai is now pretty much considered part of the ‘neighbourhood’ for the likes of this paper’s high net-worth readers. In this rubric, Kashmir can be promoted as a global destination among Dubai’s international expatriate community.
The bigger harvest lies in the sea of passengers that pass through its airport every day. The first step would have to be a Dubai-Srinagar flight. There would be work to do on the ground as well. Normalcy in the valley would first need to swell the trickle of international travellers – still concerned about their safety in J&K – to a flood. Then there is the matter of housing these numbers. Kashmir simply does not have hotel rooms to handle a robust tourist pipeline. G20 offered a glimpse of India’s potential to the world. Now, GoI has to build up world-class infrastructure in Srinagar. New destinations will have to be created, and existing ones refurbished to cater to a global clientele. That would involve capital infusion seeded by GoI. The eventual test of normalcy returning to Kashmir would be in its ability to draw foreign capital. For that, Dubai-Srinagar traffic would be a high-visibility start.
