Taj hotel fave for photo-shoots

Mumbai, Delhi 21: The new phenomenon of terror tourism seems to have taken root in the metropolis with tourists and even locals preferring to have themselves `shot` against the backdrop of the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel instead of the historic Gateway of India.

"Since the 26/11 terror strikes, people want their photographs taken with the Taj in the backdrop and not the Gateway of India monument or the Arabian Sea," photographer Manish Gupta told reporters. While this might provide some income to the photographers, they say that their business has been hit badly post the terror strikes. "I have been working here for the past 15 years, but business has been bad since the attacks. We left on the day the terrorists struck and since we returned a few days later, business has been bleak," another photographer, Vijay Chauhan, said. "Mumbai may have returned to normalcy but our business has been hit," he lamented. Gupta, who returned to the Gateway six days after the deadly attacks in which more than 160 people were killed, said that the number of tourists, both foreign and domestic, has fallen drastically. "Tourist flow here has been badly impacted and this, in turn, has affected our daily earnings," he said. Majority of those who flock to get their photographs clicked are locals. "The problem is that most of the people coming here now are from the city itself. Being locals, they bring their own cameras and click photographs. This renders us virtually jobless," another photographer, Vasu Kadam, said. Bureau Report