KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 11

Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN) has submitted a 14-point memorandum to Tourism Minister Bhanu Bhakta Dhakal, on Thursday.

Demanding that the government declare hotel industry as a national priority industry, a team led by HAN President Shreejana Rana submitted the memorandum to the minister.

Submitting the memorandum, President Rana said that the government should provide necessary support for the distribution of salaries and allowances to the hotel employees.

HAN has urged the minister to help solve the problems facing the industry as hoteliers are struggling to pay loan interests, rent, electricity bills and ever the staffers' salaries due to lack of business.

Although the government has eased restrictions on hotel operations, most of them are still closed in lack of business.

However, since all the hotels have been paying their staffers since the last 10 months, their loans have surged.

The delegation also requested government's support for the revival of the tourism sector that has been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism entrepreneurs have been saying that it may take four to five years for the tourism businesses to bounce back to pre-pandemic level.

HAN also urged for promotion of domestic tourism by implementing holiday tourism, tax exemption for pandemic-hit tourism industry, facilitating environmental studies and implementing the report of a high-level committee and task force formed to mitigate the impact of COVID-19.

The memorandum states that the classification of tourist products, standards of hotels and resorts should be made in accordance with international practice, there should be facilitation in registration and approval of hotels, integrated statistics system, training of staffers and promotion of border tourism.

The team that handed over the memorandum also included HAN General Secretary Sajan Shakya and CEO of the association Tek Bahadur Mahat.

A version of this article appears in the print on February 12, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.