'Most of the hotels and guest houses in and around Manali are booked. Still, we are getting a number of booking enquiries,' Thakur said.

Mehar Chand Thakur, a prominent travel agent in Manali, said the swine flu scare in the country has not hit Himachal Pradesh's tourism sector in a big way so far.

'Yes, there is a decline in the arrival of foreign tourists this time, it may be due to scare of swine flu or global recession. But the arrival of domestic tourists, especially from the northern states, is good,' he added.

Some domestic tourists, scared by the swine flu, are headed for the hills. Said Rajat Malik, a Chandigarh-based senior executive with a multinational company who had earlier planned a short vacation to Mumbai: 'The swine flu scare in Mumbai has shaken our confidence. We have cancelled our bookings there and are now heading for the hills.'

Last year, 9.37 million domestic and 367,000 foreign tourists visited Himachal Pradesh. Kullu and Manali are hot spots, followed by Shimla and Dharamsala.

Tourist arrivals in the state last year surpassed the state's population of about 6.5 million.