04 May 2020 – As corona virus pandemic has taken its toll throughout the world, tourism industry is the most suffering due to travel ban and transportation halts worldwide. In this situation, thousands of hospitality workers are loosing their jobs along with millions of loss to the owners.

To Plan ahead, The Hotel Association Nepal, an organisation of Nepali hoteliers, has decided to keep all the hotels affiliated to it shut until mid-October this year owing to the impact of corona-virus crisis on the country’s tourism industry.

A meeting of the association held on Sunday also made the decision to pay their staffs only 12.5 per cent of their basic salary owing to the crisis. The decision apparently violates the government decision requiring all enterprises to pay their staff a complete salary despite the lock-down and other international labor principles.

Further, the association has decided to fire the staff if they do not agree on receiving the nominal pay. There is an act for labour rights and owner’s right recently amended which allows owners to hire and fire rights as market demands.

The decision is likely to hit the staff working for big and star hotels in Kathmandu, Pokhara, Lumbini, Chitwan and other places. The association is now led by Shreejana Rana, the Executive Director of Annapurna Hotel, one of the biggest five-star hotels in the country.

Fearing that the businesses would not pay their staff, the government had decided to let the companies borrow loans from the banks at a subsidized rate. But the hoteliers made the decision to shut the hotels for a half year.

Even Government has made the decision of lending cash for operational management, it would be not bearable for the companies which their EMI and other costs are already high and not appropriate to add more on it.

If you are in hospitality services or business in Nepal, what is your opinion on this decision? Please comment below.