Kathmandu, May 3 Hotels in Sauraha are unlikely to open before the festive season begins as the hoteliers are not yet prepared to resume services. The Regional Hotel Association Chitwan (RHAC) has been having frequent discussions with the hoteliers of Sauraha and the Hotel Association Nepal (HAN) to keep their hotels closed till Dashain. It is better to close the hotels than operate them at a loss, said Deepak Bhattarai, president of RHAC. “There is still uncertainty on how long the lockdown will continue and we also cannot hope everything to become normal as soon as the lockdown is lifted,” Bhattarai said. “Moreover, the monsoon season, which is an off-season for tourism, is about to begin too. Hence, it would be better to wait till things settle down to some extent,” he added. Hoteliers are hoping the situation to become normal by October. As social distancing is a major precautionary measure to stop the coronavirus from spreading travelling from one country to another may be affected for the entire year, he added. “The number of visitors coming from foreign countries will decline as people will not prefer to travel anytime soon. And even if the movement of domestic tourists begins the number will be very low,” Bhattarai said, adding, “So, we have decided to keep our hotels shut till Dashain.” He further said that hotels are already facing losses due to the lockdown, thus, operating hotels before Dashain will increase the cost of hoteliers. “The period between October and November is a tourist season and the festival season also begins during this time. So, we are expecting these months to provide some bit of relief to our industry,” Bhattarai added. He, however, said hotels and restaurants being operated by families may open. “At present we cannot afford to pay our staffs and moreover operating costs will rise so I believe only those hotels and tourist standard restaurants being run by families will open,” he added. According to Bhattarai, hotels have provided full salary for the month of Chaitra (mid-March to mid-April) to their employees, however, they are yet to decide for the remaining months. A version of this article appears in e-paper on May 4, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.