Kathmandu, May 7
Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Yogesh Bhattarai today condemned the decision of hoteliers to start laying off workers and warned that the government will take action against the hotels that do so.
Talking to the media today, Minister Bhattarai said that the decision of hotels to cut down staffers during the crisis is both illegal and unethical and urged hotels to cooperate with the workers.
A few days ago, Hotel Association Nepal (HAN) — the umbrella organisation representing tourist standard hotels in the country — had decided to shut their businesses completely at least till mid-November by paying 12.5 per cent of staff’s basic monthly salary.
Citing that hoteliers’ business was completely down due to the coronavirus pandemic and was expected to be affected for at least one year, HAN had also decided to cut down staffers gradually if they did not cooperate on this provision.
However, Bhattarai said that the move to lay off workers is illegal. “The government has already directed businesses not to cut down staffers during this critical period and has also assured the businesses affected by the pandemic necessary facilitation,” he said, adding that the government is working on necessary relief packages for both workers and businesses, which will also be addressed through the programmes and policies of the government and the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
Urging hoteliers to shelve plans to cut down workers, Bhattarai assured that the government is holding discussions on providing subsidised loans without collateral to tourism-related businesses, along with restructuring their existing loans and providing a few tax-related facilities.
Minister Bhattarai also informed that the government will also announce a 10-year strategic plan to revive and upscale Nepal’s tourism industry through the budget for 2020-21 fiscal year.
“Even though we could not observe the Visit Nepal 2020 tourism campaign due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we still are preparing to observe 2020 to 2030 as tourism decade,” informed Bhattarai.
He said that 2020 would be taken as a year of survival in the tourism sector, 2021 as the year of revival and the remaining years till 2030 as tourism promotion years.
A version of this article appears in e-paper on May 8, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.
The post Minister Bhattarai slams hoteliers’ layoff decision appeared first on The Himalayan Times.
from The Himalayan Times https://ift.tt/2zoAL5G
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment