Agra, the city of monuments earned its name on the world map due to the Taj Mahal which is on the bucket list of every traveler and craves for visiting this city at least once in a life. Thus, this city has been a tourist hub. Furthermore, it attracts millions of tourists every year and they belong to different corners of the world. Tourism of this city is the main source of income for the locals. Since then covid has spread its wings in this city, it has lost its grandeur and the citizen of this city has been jobless. This pandemic brought their life from riches to rags and business entity comes to an almost standstill. Even after many days, emporiums, shops, restaurants, and other small scale business industry has not been opened so far because they cannot incur the huge daily expenses.
A huge mausoleum of a king and a queen remained closed for three times in the history of Taj Mahal which is around 376 years old. In 1971, the Taj Mahal Agra remained closed for two days in the month of December between (16 to 18 December) and in 1978, for a few days due to flood, and one of the longest and worst periods was in 2020 for 188 days. Today, one a year has been passed; no ray of hope appears to be seen at a far distance to resume the inbound tourism which is one of the worst affected industries of Covid.
Wrath of Covid
Agra provides a nice platform for many industries and proves to be a better place for growing business for cottage industries as well as the hospitality industry; therefore, many business tycoons look forward to establishing their business in this city. This year to save the existence of business has been challenging for the business tycoon due to COVID that engulfed jobs of thousands of people who used to be engaged in several types of jobs like handcrafted work, shoemaking business, carpet weaving, employees of hotel and restaurants and many more.
Revival of Tourism
At this moment, it is very hard to survive in this industry and it almost seems impossible unless the government of India provides financial help to them. Tourism industries have been plummeted down to the deepest point of the dig for tourism players like tour operators, travel agents, transporters, restaurant owners, and shop keepers. They all are in the same boat due to covid. No hopes for green shoots at a far distance.
All sorts of businessmen whether small or Barron are looking forward to reviving their business because after many days of closing the Taj Mahal, their business is not coming back on track which they had. Now, tourists start visiting this city but they are not as many in number they used to come here. Therefore, it is not easy to accelerate their speed in business unless inbound tourism starts moving.
The life of inhabitants of this city is suffered badly due to Covid and still, no ray of hope seems to be at the other end of the tunnel. But tourism can be revived if the government takes a few mandatory steps and some are given below:
- Covid Vaccination should be executed in a full swing.
- Awareness among people should be spread about Covid.
- The maximum number of trains, busses and flights should be started within a country.
- Citizen needs to be honest to disclose his travel history if the agency requires to know.
This is true tourism of Agra is facing one of the worst times in the history of this city. The bread and butter of around half-million of people in this city depend on tourism and this pandemic has made them jobless. Thus it is very clear to understand this city is going through a lean patch.