mangaluru after four years of backtoback washout tourist seasons the tourism industry in the region is looking forward to the upcoming christmas and new year seasonsthe industry had been unable to cash in on the holiday season that starts at the end of november and stretches till midjanuary previously in 2018 there were restrictions due to untoward incidents in 2019 the season was washed out due to police firing deaths during anticaa protests according to industry stakeholders so far they have received good queries and some of the hotel rooms have already been booked for december besides the yearend season has scheduled a lot of weddings and other social gatheringssounding positive about the season b n girish vicepresident of the ocean pearl mangaluru said bookings for november was picking up and they are completely booked for december both our event venues as well as rooms in our two properties situated in the city are booked for december what we have learned from our guests is that they are coming down from various parts of the world to attend social gatherings said girishthe same trend is also seen in other hotels peter nirmal general manager of the gateway hotel said the response this year compared to last year is good we have a lot of bookings for december and we expect a few more in the coming days in total we have observed that guests are willing to travel to mangaluru earlier there was fear among them due to covid19 said nirmalanother hotelier damodar shetty who is a partner at prestige hotels in balmatta said they have observed that a lot of nris have planned to come down this season they were unable or did not wish to travel to a coastal city in the last two years due to the prevailing pandemic this year the city is expecting a good inflow of nris and people from other states who have roots here he said adding that rooms at his property are booked for decembereulalia dsouza of lia travels and tours said the tourism sector is almost back to its normal buzz however many from the city who wish to travel to foreign destinations are facing issues with delay and rejection of visas for reasons not known therefore they are settling for domestic tours dsouza said