Give the status of industry to hotel sector at the soonest, Shah demands

KATHMANDU, JANUARY 7: Binayak Shah, President of the Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN), has urged the government to recognise the hotel sector in the country as an industry without further ado. As the sector continues to be bereft of such recognition, it is not getting the state facilities provided by other industries.  One such facility is a reduction in the electricity fee by about 10 per unit.  The industries have to pay just Rs 6/7 per unit while for the non-industries, the per unit cost is Rs 16/17.

According to Shah, the high cost of electricity is a great challenge that hoteliers across the country are facing. “The concerned authorities should immediately amend the Industrial Enterprise Act 2020 to give the status of industry to the hotel business. If this happens, it will go a long way toward the resilient, sustainable growth of the sector (that was among the sectors suffering most from the Covid-19 pandemic).

In 2023, the government achieved the target of welcoming 1 million foreign tourists to the country. When asked about how the hoteliers look upon this achievement, he replied, ” No doubt, it is a positive sign given a discouragingly low tourist arrivals over the previous three years owing to the pandemic and subsequent travel restrictions.

“Nevertheless, the said figure is still not adequate for Nepali hotels as they together have a carrying capacity of around 3.5 million guests per year. It means there is a big mismatch between the demand and the supply. The very discrepancy is only widening with the rapid proliferation in the number of new hotels.”

According to him, the only surefire way to resolve this is to impel more foreign travellers from visiting the country.  “One of the viable strategies in this regard could well be focussing more on the largest and the second largest tourism source markets of Nepal, India and China.

“The air and road connectivity with these two markets shall be enhanced and expanded on a war footing. This will help in increasing the current tourist arrivals from each of them by two/threefold,” Shah opines, adding,”  A significant uptick in the number of travellers from the southern and the northern neighbour is important for the success of the national campaign of the Tourism Decade-2023 to 2032 announced by the government.”