November 6: The government has announced concessional loans as a relief to the tourism industry that has been badly affected by coronavirus. However, hotels in Province 1 have started to close one after another due to the problems in meeting the operational costs.

Although the lockdown and prohibitory order have been lifted, the hotel industry is struggling due to lack of tourists.

Hotel Asiatique of Biratnagar has converted itself into a 100-bed isolation centre after the arrival of tourists stopped.

Operator of the hotel Punya Bhattarai, who is also the provincial chairman of Nepal Association of Travel Agents (NATA), informed that they were forced to convert the hotel into an isolation centre after failing to raise the operational costs.

He says that the hotel business had started to return back on track after the lockdown was lifted. However, their business has again  declined due to the rise in number of coronavirus cases across the country.

Bhattarai informed that the reason behind the closure of two big hotels of Biratnagar including Genelia and Namaskar is the failure to meet the operational cost.

He says that the tourism industry in Province 1 is under existential crisis as the old hotels have started closing down while the new ones are unable to start their business.