SHILLONG: With New Year only a day away, Shillong, a famed tourist spot, is witnessing a huge rush of tourists who are arriving here to usher in the New Year.
Many of the hotels and lodges in Shillong and its outskirts are packed with tourists especially from West Bengal and Assam, with a sizeable number of international tourists also making their presence felt in the Pine City.
As December draws to a close, tourists have made a beeline for Shillong with plans to celebrate the New Year through music and festivities that have been planned in the city.
Overjoyed with the flow of tourists in the State, travel agents said that there are heavy bookings of taxis for the Pine City.
Tour operators are over the moon with the number of tourists coming to the State on the rise.
“Our business is quite better than previous year as tourists had avoided coming to Shillong last year due to the spate of agitations in the State,” a manager of a city hotel said on Monday.
“We hope that more tourists would visit Shillong since two more days are left for the New Year,” another hotel owner said.
Trying to make most of the opportunity, several hotels and lodges in the capital have also lined up various programmes to welcome the New Year.
The charming capital of Meghalaya is the perfect place to unwind and get away from the polluted and loud urban environment as this vibrant city is teeming with young people and their youthful energy and music when the world is preparing itself to enter into 2015, observed some tourists who spoke to this scribe.
Some tourists from West Bengal, while explaining their choice of Shillong as a tourist destination, said that Meghalaya is probably the best place to visit after Sikkim in the North East due to its climatic conditions and its natural beauty.
