Published on : Monday, April 26, 2021
In the midst of stringent restrictions in India due to mounting COVID-19 cases and deaths, the Himachal Pradesh Tourism Industry Stake Holders Association has expressed anxiety over the tourism industry facing financial setbacks and urged the state government to provide financial assistance and other reliefs to save the industry.
“The tourism industry is ruined. The tourism stakeholders are facing a financial crisis. The financial setbacks since the last four years have broken the backbone of the industry. Because of the present circumstances arisen due to COVID-19, it has become impossible to meet day-to-day expenses for the hotels, restaurants, taxi operators, adventure operators, water sports operators, photographers, and all other tourism units,” said Mohinder Seth, President, Tourism Industry Stake Holders Association, Himachal Pradesh.
“The tourism units are not able to pay the interest and EMI of loans raised by them due to loss faced by the industry for the consecutive second year. The stakeholders fear the loans raised by them may slip to NPA,” he added while stressing the fact that the hoteliers, restaurants and other tourism unit owners are unable to gather staff salaries, electricity water bills and other fixed expenditures.
Seth expressed that tourism in Himachal Pradesh is continuously suffering financial impediments for the last four years, and the tourism industry suffered revenue losses in the summer of 2018 due to acute water shortage in Shimla and in 2019 due to Lok Sabha elections till mid-May.
In 2020, due to the COVID-19 induced nationwide lockdown, the tourism industry remained completely shut for around eight to nine months and lost its main summer season when tourism remains at its peak.
“This year again consecutively for the second year, the tourism in Himachal will lose business in the summer season. Half of the tourist season has already slipped out of the hands of the tourism stakeholders due to the situation that has arisen in almost every part of the country due to the second wave of COVID-19 and restrictions imposed just before the starting of the main season which contributes a major chunk of revenue for the whole year to sustain the industry,” stated Seth.
He said that business travelers have stopped coming or are reluctant to visit Himachal Pradesh due to the state government advisory making it compulsory for people visiting Himachal to present a COVID-19 negative report.
Mr. Seth further stated that many services are reliant on these business travelers coming from neighboring states.
Tags: Himachal Pradesh tourism
|
||||
   
|
||||
  |
||||
