February 19, 2007	Monday	Safar 1, 1428

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MALAM JABBA (Swat), Feb 18: Freak weather and lack of infrastructure have affected the winter tourism here, forcing people associated with the tourism sector to seek employment in other cities.

The much-awaited National Skiing Championship, scheduled to be held between Feb 10 and 15 in Malam Jabba, was not held this year because of the extraordinary snowfall, reducing the locals’ chances of earning their livelihood, said Bakht-i-Rome, a local skiing trainer.

The Malam Jabba skiing competition, Pakistan’s first skiing resort developed with the help of the Austrian government in 1986, was included as one of the main events in ‘Destination Pakistan’, the tourism ministry’s initiative to boost tourism in Pakistan after declaring 2007 as ‘Visit Pakistan Year’.

There are about 70 self-taught skiing trainers who anxiously await the championship every year but because of lack of employment opportunities local ski trainers are moving to cities like Hyderabad, Quetta to find jobs, including work in coal mines, said 25 years old Azizur Rehman, father of three children.

“I had gone to Muzzafarabad to look for work but couldn’t find any and had to come back hoping to find work during the skiing competition but it seems I am not so lucky,” said Rehman, who is also a ski craftsman.

Umer Zarin, who owns a small tea vending kiosk, said that the average daily income was Rs50 in winters while during summers, he earned between Rs100 and Rs150 a day, barely enough to sustain his family.

The snowfall at the beginning of the month was not enough to hold the skiing championship. The venue of the championship was shifted to the Northern Areas. “It snowed later but it was of no use to us as there were too few tourists at the resort,” said Usman Ali, another ski trainer.

The resort is 8,700 feet above sea level and is 45 kilometers from the town of Saidu Sharif and is surrounded by the black mountains of the Karakoram Range. About 600 people live here, who are still without a hospital or school.

Sheer poverty forces many children to beg for money from tourists or learn to ski on their home-made wooden skis so that they could become trainers. The fall in the number of tourists because of bad road conditions in recent years has increased poverty and decreased employment opportunities for the local people.

Sajjad Khan, manager of the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation’s (PTDC) hotel in Malam Jabba, told this correspondent that the number of tourists visiting the resort had dwindled over the past few years.