KATHMANDU : Tourism Recovery Task Force (TRTF-Nepal) has been launched on the occasion of World Tourism Day, aiming to play a proactive role for sound and speedy recovery of tourism in Nepal.
Issuing a statement on Saturday, the TRTF-Nepal secretariat said that the task force is established together by the public and private sector tourism fraternity in Nepal.
Sprouted by PATA Nepal Chapter and SKAL Nepal, the task force brings tourism professionals, authorities and thought leaders at the public and private sectors to counsel, promote, and undertake necessary initiatives towards the rapid, robust, and responsible recovery of tourism in Nepal from the impact of COVID-19.
“Realizing an urgent need to foster highly focused immediate priorities, concrete strategy, and a result-oriented action plan, or a clear-cut SRT strategy (Survive-Revive-Thrive), to bounce back better from the adverse impact of the COVID-19, this TRTF Nepal initiative is taken-up,” read the statement. “At this hour of crisis, the re-start of tourism operations as quickly and effectively as possible will assist Nepal and its people to regenerate employment and trade,” it added.
The newly launched task force will help and cooperate on aligning the rational, responsible, progressive, and constructive advocacy with the government and decision-making authorities in tourism on how best Nepal’s tourism sector can adapt with and recover from the COVID-19 crisis, according to the statement.
According to the WTTC (2019), the travel and tourism sector has nearly 6.7 percent contribution to Nepal’s economy with about 1.1 million direct employment opportunities. The global outbreak of COVID-19 has created one of the greatest threats to many economies, and livelihoods who rely on the tourism sector.
Addressing the launching ceremony held on Saturday, Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Yogesh Bhattarai appreciated the private sector for coming together to foster collaborative efforts towards tourism recovery and invited the task force to jointly work with the governments at local, provincial and federal levels. A domestic tourism promotion campaign #DeshDarshan was also launched by Tourism Minister Bhattarai during the program.
