Boom or Burden? Landour’s Tourist Rush Tests the Limits of a Hill Town

Surging tourism brings income and migrants — but also crowds, traffic, and climate strain — prompting new restrictions in a town ill-equipped for the influx.

Sapna Gopal

The busy market centre of Char-dukaan (four shops) in Landour, Uttarakhand, June 13, 2025. Abhishek Bhatt/The Migration Story

LANDOUR/MUSSOORIE, Uttarakhand: Landour, a small colonial-era hill town in northern India, flanked by old deodar, pine and oak trees and offering glorious views of the Himalayas is wilting under the weight of heat-fuelled tourism, with authorities now planning to check tourist entry into this once-secluded haven.

Landour, a town of less than 4,000 residents, and neighbouring Mussoorie - dubbed as the Queen of Hills - about 4 km downhill from Landour, together drew over 2 million tourists in 2024, up from 1 million in 2020, with numbers mounting year after year, with more people flocking to the hills to escape oven-like cities as temperatures soar.

The town’s tiny teahouses serving warm cakes and steaming brew on mist-filled summer afternoons are now packed at all hours, its narrow roads teeming with people and the journey to Landour from Delhi stretching to up to 10 hours on weekends, up from five to six hours that it otherwise takes.

Landour receives up to 1,000 cars per day on weekends in the summer months of May and June, mainly from Haryana, New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, according to data provided to The Migration Story by the Landour Cantonment Board. The board will now impose restrictions on entry - allowing a total of 200 tourist and private vehicles into the town following complaints from local residents.

While earlier most tourists limited their exploration to Mussoorie, but now most make it a point to travel to Landour.

Traffic on the road between Mussoorie and Landour where traffic snarls have become routine, on June 13, 2025. Abhishek Bhatt/The Migration Story

“Landour is a very small hill station… a very old cantonment with steep roads. So when too many vehicles come here, it is not able to handle so much traffic and crowd and there is no place to park vehicles,” said Ankita Singh, chief executive officer of Landour Cantonment Board, adding that the small town is often drawing more crowds than even a popular hill station of Nainital due to its “scenic and pristine beauty”.

Singh, who was posted to Landour only last November and recalls being disappointed with the absence of snow during the winter months, said the crowding of this small town began after social media influencers began making reels during the pandemic about how it was an isolated space with no people, which pulled in the crowds.

“Prior to this, very few tourists would come here. The reels made it popular. In the last 5-6 years, the number of tourists has grown exponentially,” she said. “Recently, a 62-year-old man died in the ambulance, before he could reach the hospital, in Mussoorie, owing to the traffic jam,” she said. 

The board will allow only those vehicles which have a pre-approved entry pass that tourists will have to procure at Landour’s entry inside the town.

Residents said traffic snarls, unruly crowds were unseen and unheard of in Landour, and that tourists were breaking the very tranquillity they seek in a hill station.

Beyond the din, however, lurks a bigger concern. Climate experts have warned of an imminent decline of hill retreats such as Landour, which are becoming hotter even as they bear the growing burden of more tourists, with vacation properties and local businesses installing fans and air-conditioners to offer comfort to visitors.

“Earlier, homes and hotels in Mussoorie didn’t have fans,” said Anil Prakash, 70, owner of Prakash Stores in Landour, almost a century-old shop that tourists were thronging on this warm May afternoon for its homemade jams, pickles, peanut butter and oats cookies. 

“We now feel the need for fans due to the increased heat. Every year, there seems to be a change in the weather. It is just getting hotter,” he said. 

Prakash also owns the Devdar Hotel in Landour where he has installed fans and air conditioners.

HEAT & BUSINESS

Tourists hang out at St. Paul's Church in Landour, on June 13, 2025. Abhishek Bhatt/The Migration Story

In 2024, India experienced its longest recorded heatwave since 2010. Many states experienced daytime temperatures of over 40°C for an entire month, leading to more than 44,000 cases of heatstroke. By April 2025, more than 10 states had already experienced severe heatwaves, according to a study by think tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water released in May this year.

About 57% of Indian districts, home to 76% of India’s total population, are currently at high to very high heat risk, the study notes.

The maximum temperature in May and June in Delhi this year hovered between 43 and 48 degrees Celsius, as per the Indian Meteorological Department data, interspersed with some thundershowers that brought the temperature down. In contrast, the maximum temperature in June in Landour - which rests on the foothills of the Himalayas - was a more comfortable 24 degree Celsius.

Tourist Supriya Lawrence, who was staying at the Devdar Woods hotel in Landour in May and has been a regular visitor of this hill town for nearly four decades, said, “When I came here as a child, I do not recollect seeing so many people, especially Indians in Landour.”

“People are keen on getting out of places like Delhi, escaping the heat and heading for the hills,” said Lawrence, who was visiting Landour from the United States, after stop overs in Delhi and Mussoorie. 

But even the hills are warming and the local Indian Meteorological Department is evaluating temperature data from the past 40 years to statistically conclude the rise in temperature in Uttarakhand’s hill stations, said Bikram Singh, in-charge of the IMD state level forecast and data, for Uttarakhand.

“Our primary observation is that though there has been a rise in temperatures in the hill stations, we cannot come to a definite conclusion, unless we complete the analysis we are currently working on,” Singh told The Migration Story, “We are in the process of evaluating,” he said.

Mussoorie and Landour are located in Dehradun, the capital city of Uttarakhand, which recorded a heatwave in June last year when the maximum temperature breached the 43 degree Celsius mark, and in April this year, with the city recording a maximum of 38.4 degree Celsius, according to data from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). However, data from Tehri weather station, which is closest to Mussoorie, shows a maximum mean temperature in June, 2024, as 32.2 degree Celsius, up from 28.9 degree Celsius in 2023.

Traffic congestion in Library Chowk, Mussoorie on June 13, 2025. Abhishek Bhatt/The Migration Story

Climate experts warn that rising heat in the hills will eventually pose a threat to their tourism-dependent economies, the collapse of which will derail countless livelihoods even as tourists will move on in search of cooler climes.

“This heat will have a cascading impact — hill stations on the peripheries (deeper into the Himalayas) will start attracting more crowds and they will become like the crowded hill stations right now (like Landour),” said research scientist Manish Kumar from leading think tank, Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP).

Climate experts noted that the stress on resources in these small hill town was building. 

“Temperatures have definitely increased, but more than that, pre-monsoon droughts have increased significantly in the last 10 years in hill stations,” said Dr Vishal Singh, executive director of Centre for Ecology Development and Research (CEDAR), which has been tracking temperatures in hilly regions for decades.

“There is a significant rise in the temperatures during summer in some popular hill stations. Places like Nainital, Mussoorie and Munsiyari were extremely hot in the year 2024,” he says.  

Tourists in Landour said better facilities of air conditioners and electric fans was keeping them comfortable. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA),“the lion’s share of the projected growth in energy use for space cooling by 2050 comes from the emerging economies, with just three countries – India, China and Indonesia – contributing half of global cooling energy demand growth.”

Poor rainfall in the winter months has led to poor recharge of springs, which has fuelled water scarcity in the summer months, according to Vishal Singh, executive director of Centre for Ecology Development and Research (CEDAR).

A view of Mussoorie that shows the road leading to Landour on June 13, 2025. Abhishek Bhatt/The Migration Story

Also, it’s not just the climate shift that is making hills in Uttarakhand state warmer, experts said. Unabated construction, deforestation and rising emissions from vehicles crowding the hills have also contributed to their warming.

Commercial and residential properties, cafes and hotels have sprung in recent years in Mussoorie and Landour, often haphazard that has eaten into the green cover of the hills, according to locals and environmentalists. Local media routinely reports the felling of trees for projects such as road widening and local citizens organising marches to protest against such moves.

Meanwhile, fancy resorts have started coming up in small hilly hamlets of Ramgarh and Dhanachauli. “A small village like Sitla (located on the edge of a reserve forest and with a population of less than 500 people, according to census data) has 15 to 20 resorts now,” he added. 

Those dependent on tourism for a living have had a busy summer.

Private tour guides who take tourists around Mussoorie and Landour credited the heat in the plains for better business.

“If it’s hot in the plains, our business is good,” said tour operator Naresh Chauhan, 28, who migrated to Mussoorie four years ago from the Hindu pilgrim town of Yamunotri, hoping the tourist numbers in Mussoorie and Landour would fetch him better income to take care of his family of seven.

“I was hoping I can earn well here and improve my family’s financial condition,” he said. 

The bet paid off.

“I earn Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 a month, if business is good,” he said.

Many migrants come in search of a livelihood to busy tourist towns like Mussoorie, as the prospect of good business overshadows risks associated with changing weather conditions such as a cloud burst, a sudden spurt of rain or the heat, said Anoop Nautiyal, founder of Dehradun-based environmental action and advocacy group SDC Foundation.

Tour guide Ajit Singh Chauhan (left) poses for a picture with another guide, Sharad Singh, in Mussoorie, on May 27, 2025. Sapna Gopal/The Migration Story

Another tour guide Ajit Singh Chauhan, also migrated to Mussoorie from Uttarkashi to work as a tour guide, and spends his days taking tourists to the popular Kempty waterfalls, the local market area and shows them around Landour. He credited his earnings in 2024 to the heat, describing India’s hottest year on record as a “fantastic tourist season” in Mussoorie.

“The hotter it is, the better it is for us,” he said, as he negotiated rates with a group of tourists for showing them around.

For apricot seller Rohit Kumar, 31, who migrated to Mussoorie from Sarjapur in Uttar Pradesh, these shifts are not a major concern for him. Though he feels hot as he carries around a basket of plums and apricots to sell to tourists, he said, "It has become hot, but I have plenty of fruits to sell.”

“We work mainly in May and June and fortunately, the heat hasn’t been so overbearing that it hinders our work,” he said.

Apricot seller Rohit Kumar poses for a picture in Mussoorie on May 27, 2025. Sapna Gopal/The Migration Story

But as afternoons become warmer,  some tourism-dependent workers find their customer base wilting. 

The swelling crowds in Mussoorie and Landour had attracted Rahul Singh from his village in Hardoi district of Uttar Pradesh to Mussoorie five years ago. He sells roasted gram and nuts in cone-shaped newspaper cups in Mussoorie. Earlier, many of his customers were tourists walking around the local bazar and those seated in cars, windows rolled down as they inhaled the crisp fresh air of the hills.

“Business was good then. I managed to earn 14,000 to 20,000 rupees a month,” said Singh, standing by a busy roadside in Mussoorie, glancing at the air-conditioned cars rolling by, their windows shut.

“Sheesha khulega tabhi toh kuchh bikega na (I will be able to sell if the car window is open),” he said.

Fruit seller Fareed Rai came to Mussoorie from Uttar Pradesh a year ago but is considering returning to his village. He has installed a pedestal fan to keep his roadside shop cool, but it fails to draw in many customers, he said. On this May afternoon, he had no customers at his shop, tourists zipping by in their cars, the business not as good as he expected it to be.

“Once the lease period of my shop is over, I just want to go back,” he said.

 Sapna Gopal is a freelance writer and mostly covers India's renewable energy sector