Hotels teetering on the edge amid the coronavirus closure have decided to cut their losses by remaining shuttered for six months, as they don't expect tourists to visit Nepal for at least another year.

 

Officials said more than 3,000 hotels will send their staff home because they can't keep paying their salaries with no revenue coming in due to the lockdown.

 

"It is hard for operators to keep paying the employees as nobody knows how long the pandemic will last," said Binayak Shah, senior vice-president of the Hotel Association Nepal.

 

"Even if the lockdown is lifted, the tourism industry will take time to recover because travellers will not immediately book foreign trips. The hotels will all be bankrupt by the time tourism rebounds as they have to pay staff salaries while income has come down to zero," he said. "So closing the hotels is the best way to protect ourselves."

 

According to him, an emergency meeting of the association held on Sunday decided to pay only 12.5 percent of the basic salaries to the employees while asking the government to pay the workers through the social security fund.But the trade unions are not happy with the association's decision.

 

Madhav Pandey, president of the All Nepal Hotel Casino and Restaurant Workers’ Union, told the Post that the association's decision would leave 300,000 workers in the hotel business stranded without any support.

 

"In addition, it will impact another 700,000 workers in non-member hotels and restaurants," he said. "We are surprised that the hotels have given up in just one and a half months, and they want the workers to die without any income."

 

Every destination in the world now has travel restrictions in place as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a recent study.