Increasing in Tourism specially at cultural and heritage locations in Pakistan has marked a massive increase of 317 percent over the past five years with Punjab’s contribution being nearly 95 percent, according to a report.
The report Cultural Heritage and Museum Visits in Pakistan by Gallup Pakistan, a research group affiliated with Gallup International Association, reveals that tourism could be a powerful game-changer that could sustain the crisis amid economy of the country.
According to the report with DAWN, tourist traffic at cultural sites has observed a massive increase since 2014. From approximately 1.6 million visits in 2014, the tourist traffic at cultural sites hiked to 6.6m visits in 2018, a 317 percent increase in a span of five years. Punjab, as the largest and most populated province of Pakistan, contributed approximately 95 percent whereas tourist traffic in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa fluctuated over the years.
Total visits by foreigners increased by more than twice for both cultural viewpoints and museums in Pakistan. The Pakistan Monument Museum in Islamabad, Khewra Mines Museum in Chakwal and Lok Virsa Heritage Museum in Islamabad were the top three most-visited museums from 2016 to 2018, with Taxila and Lahore museums in fourth and fifth positions.
The trend among all four provinces for total foreign visits experienced a notable increase, with the highest increase in KPK where the number of museum visits in 2018 increased by 250 percent.