Saturday, September 26, 2020

Government launches Tourism Recovery Task Force

 The government today launched Tourism Recovery Task Force (TRTF-Nepal) – along with the ‘visit the country’ campaign – to accelerate the coronavirus-hit tourism industry.

Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Yogesh Bhattarai – also marking the World Tourism Day – launched a domestic tourism promotion campaign #DeshDarshan on the occasion. A dedicated website www. trtfnepal.com also went live from today and series of thematic webinars and programmes are in line to support the recovery campaign, Bhattarai said, addressing the launch ceremony. He also 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. 

On the occasion, tourism secretary Kedar Bahadur Adhikari launched a training manual of the ‘Empowering Rural Destinations’ campaign, which is an initiative by TRTF-Nepal to train and build the capacity of rural destinations with new safety protocols, and food safety and hygiene for community health. “TRTF-Nepal is a joint initiative by PATA Nepal Chapter and SKAL Nepal, which has brought together industry veterans, professionals, and leading global tourism organisations as ‘advisors’,” the ministry informed, adding that the prominent tourism associations have been appointed ‘associational patrons’, the key agencies or organisations working in safety and security concerns of travellers are appointed as ‘health and safety patrons’ and the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) as ‘industry patron’ to intensify the collective efforts for tourism recovery. 

Former chief executive officer of NTB Deepak R Joshi is the coordinator of the TRTF-Nepal, whereas treasurer and HCD-coordinator for PATA Nepal Chapter Khem Lakai will be the spokesperson. The secretariat of the task force will be handled by PATA Nepal chief executive officer Suresh Singh Budal.

TRTF-Nepal has conducted a survey on industry’s preparedness to restart tourism, prepared infographic communication materials about HHS protocols, collecting and compiling information about successful restarting practices adopted by other countries and destinations.

The task force is expected to coordinate for better collaboration and effective communication with key authorities and organisations, ensuring consistency of messaging with updates in source markets through various channels. 

Earlier, Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) had formed a task force under the public private partnership (PPP) model to study the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the tourism industry. 

No comments: