SHANGLA: The Shangla district has now become a popular tourist destination attracting a large number of tourists in summer as well as winter, said district police officer Malak Ijaz on Sunday.

Talking to this correspondent, he said that over 2,700 foreign tourists also visited tourist points in the district in 2019 and enjoyed the valley’s natural beauty and peaceful atmosphere.

He said that Shangla was a peaceful area and both the local and foreign tourists could come to enjoy their trips in the valley. He said that overall 2019 remained a better year for the district as a large number of tourists, including foreigners, visited Shangla.

The DPO said that the tourists visited the lush green meadows, thick forests, waterfalls and other spots of the district.

A hotelier in Bisham told this scribe that the flow of tourists remained higher in 2019 than the previous year as almost all hotels of the area were booked to capacity in the summer season.

He said that the tourism industry in the region had seen development in the past two years and people were now familiar with the business as for the first time tour operators had started their operations in Shangla district.

Another hotelier Khurshed Khan said that there were several undiscovered historical places as well as Gandhara civilisation sites, but they needed to be explored. He said that local and foreign tourists had stayed in large numbers at their hotels in 2019.

Shangla also has remains of the Gandhara civilisation as local archaeologists have been striving to discover the sites.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has also set up camping pods at the tourist spots to facilitate the tourists. In some areas, projects for development of the tourist spots are also underway.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2020