Puri, Dec. 30: Rooms in all hotels, official guest houses and dharamshalas are packed as people from all parts of the country have reached here to celebrate the New Year.

Puri, the pilgrim town, which had borne the brunt of Phailin, has slowly overcome the crisis and expects to attract at least one lakh tourists from outside the state.

The other two tourist spots — Konark and the Chilika Lake — too are drawing a number of tourists. “It’s almost impossible to get a room at this moment in Puri,” said a hotelier in Puri.

Tourism minister Maheswar Mohanty said: “The tourism sector has begun to open up. We are hopeful that the number of tourists in Puri and other tourist places will swell in the coming days.”

Puri Hotel Owners’ Association president Ramkrushna Das Mohapatra said: “All the 3,000 rooms in hotels affiliated to the association are already occupied.” Nearly 480 hotels are tied up with the association, an equal number of hotels are providing the lodging and other facilities to the people independently.

Mohapatra said the tourists had booked the rooms through Internet and over phone.

“The payment is also done through net banking. Only a few rooms are booked on the spot. Phailin hit us badly, as during Dussehra, the town usually gets a sizeable number of tourists, especially from neighbouring states. This is the peak season and hotels will remain packed till January 5,” he said.

Major hotels have fixed prices for all occasions, while many small hoteliers hike room tariffs in view of the tourist flow. While the room tariff of a big hotel ranges between Rs 12,000 and Rs 7,000, prices of other hotels differ from Rs 7,000 to Rs 1,500. “The tariff in smaller small hotels shoot up like anything. They charge almost double the usual rate,” said an hotelier.

The association has asked all its hoteliers to behave properly with the tourists. “We are insisting that all the hoteliers must install closed-circuit television cameras on the premises, so that movement of unscrupulous elements can be regulated,” said Das Mohapatra.

To maintain law and order in the city, police have deployed 10 platoons of force in the city. The temple administration has adopted a number of measures to ensure that pilgrims get the darshan of the Trinity without any hassles.

Travel, Hotel and Restaurant Association chairman D.K. Nanda said: “From December onwards, the response of tourists is good.”

However, there are complaints of autorickshaws and rickshawalas charging arbitrary amounts from passengers. “Autorickshaws are charging Rs 100 for a trip to Jagannath temple from Medical Square though the distance is only 1km. The local administration should look into it,” said computer professional Sambit Das.