Nepal Re-Opens For Tourism Activities from 17 August 2020

Nepal Re-Opens For Tourism Activities from 17 August 2020

Nepal Re-Opens For Tourism Activities from 17 August 2020

 

Nepal government announce to resume all international and domestic flights from August 17, the Ministry of Culture Tourism and Civil Aviation said it would let all tourism related activities including mountain climbing in the autumn season commence.

With the latest announcement, the tourism fraternity believes that the industry which incurred a loss of over 10 billion rupees a month during the COVID-induced nationwide lockdown would gradually return to a new normal.

“The ministry plans to resume all tourism related activities by following health and safety protocols from August 17, by adding safety protocols which will be finalised by holding consultations with stakeholders concerned.

According to the Cabinet decision, flights will be resumed in three phases. In the first phase, flights will be operated to the destinations that are less affected by COVID-19. After that, gradually, flights will be operated to other destinations in the second and third phases. During the initial period of flight resumption, all airline companies will not be allowed to operate all their aircraft at once. Permission to operate aircraft will be given based on the destination and the number of passengers.

“MoCTCA will coordinate with the Ministry of Health and Population for safety of the passengers travelling via commercial flights if any health issue does arise.”

The Ministry of Health and Population, said that the ministry would soon come up with new guidelines on handling of the arriving air passengers after August 17.

“All passengers who plan to arrive here on charter or repatriation flights until August 16 should go to quarantine centres and passengers of the scheduled commercial flights must show their PCR report to enter Nepal.

According to him, the Health Ministry has been discussing with the stakeholders and experts to decide on whether passengers of the scheduled international flights should go for self-quarantine even after producing the PCR test report.

The Department of Tourism is all set to issue climbing permits for the autumn season after the government decided to resume domestic and international flights.

Cited from the National daily “The Himalayan Times”.