Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru/Udupi
Mangaluru/Udupi: Year-end travel, coupled with school excursions and family holidays, has led to a huge influx of tourists across the coastal region. Temples, beaches, waterfalls and trekking destinations along the coast are witnessing heavy crowds.
With Christmas falling on Thursday, followed by a single working day on Friday and then the weekend holidays, employees from both private and government sectors planned trips to the coast in large numbers. Alongside them, Ayyappa devotees are also undertaking pilgrimages to various religious centres. As a result, tourist footfall surged at temples, beaches, Pilikula and several other destinations.
The sea remains relatively calm during December, making it an ideal time for beach visits. Many tourists chose this period to explore the coastline. Malpe’s St Mary’s Island and several estuaries across the district are also seeing a steady rise in visitors. Tannirbhavi, Blue Flag and Panambur beaches recorded exceptionally high footfall, with large numbers of tourists taking part in various beach activities.
Udupi district has over 120 authorised homestays and several unauthorised ones, most of which are fully booked till December 31. Resorts near beaches are in high demand, with tariffs seeing a slight increase. Due to the tourist rush, rooms in major lodges and hotels in cities have also been fully occupied. This situation is expected to continue till the end of the year.
Malpe Beach witnessed an overwhelming crowd on Thursday. From morning onwards, tourists arrived in large numbers from Bengaluru, Mysuru, Hassan and Hubballi. By evening, a heavy crowd was seen across a stretch of nearly 2.5 km from Seawalk to the northern foot of the guesthouse area. According to estimates, over 12,000 people had gathered at the beach.
St Mary’s Island also received a large number of visitors, with big boats operating from the Seawalk area making about 16 trips during the day.
Parking areas near both the Seawalk and the beach were completely full. Vehicles were parked along both sides of the road from the interlock road near the beach up to the Seawalk, and from Jnanajyothi Bhajan Mandir to Balkar Sri Rama Bhajan Mandir.
Traffic congestion persisted throughout the day on the Adi Udupi–Malpe main road. Vehicles were also diverted via Kalyanpur, Lakshminagar and Kodavoor towards Citizen Circle, resulting in traffic build-up in those areas as well. Police personnel were deployed to ensure smooth flow of traffic.