Saturday, April 27, 2024
Kathmandu: Nepal launched the Tourism Recovery Task Force (TRTF-Nepal) Saturday on the occasion of World Tourism Day. In the context of the COID-19 pandemic, aiming to play a pro-active role for sound and speedy recovery of tourism in Nepal, a Tourism Recovery Task Force-Nepal is established together by the public and private sector tourism fraternity in Nepal.
According to Taskforce, it shall cooperate and align 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; shall coordinate for better collaborations with key authorities/ organizations; and effective communication, ensuring consistency of messaging with updates in source markets through various channels; and shall suggest the plan and possible resources to the government and the private-sector tourism stakeholders through different initiatives, webinars and programs towards the revival of tourism in a more resilient and sustainable manner.
The Task Force shall also initiate and undertake the promotional campaign about the destination's Preparedness, updates, and unique offerings to enhance favorable publicity in the respective source Markets at the national, regional, and international levels through identified 10 key Communication Channels.
Tourism in Nepal is one of the most important sectors with a multifaceted contribution. According to the WTTC (2019), the Travel and Tourism sector supported Nepal's economy with 6.7 per cent GDP contribution, about 1.1 million direct employment opportunities, and 30.8 per cent of total export earnings via visitors' spending. The global outbreak of COVID-19 has created one of the greatest threats to many economies, and livelihoods who rely on the tourism sector. At this hour of crisis, the re-start of tourism operations as quickly and effectively as possible will assist Nepal and its people to regenerating employment and trade.
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.
To kick off its engagement, TRTF-Nepal has conducted a survey on Industry’s Preparedness to Restart Tourism, has prepared Infographic communication materials about HHS protocols, collecting and compiling information about successful Restarting Practices adopted by other countries/destinations.
Speaking in the programme, Minister for Ministry of 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 is also launched by Hon’ble Minister Mr. Yogesh Bhattrai amidst a valuable presence of the key leaders and professionals of the tourism industry.
Secretary of Ministry of Tourism, Kedar Adhikari, launched the training manual of the "Empowering Rural Destinations" campaign, which is an initiative by TRTF Nepal to train and build the capacity of the rural destinations with new safety protocols, and Food Safety and Hygiene for community health. Mr. Adhikari praised the TRTF initiative by the private sector and suggested TRTF to work together with the priorities of the government and further align the programs in collaboration with the governments at the local and provincial levels.
A dedicated website www.trtfnepal.com is also live and series of thematic webinars and programs are in line to support the recovery campaign!
Every time, to overcome the negative impact of crisis, the destination and the industry needs stronger collaboration and effective communication. So TRTF Nepal team request all the major stakeholders of tourism industry and media friends to come together for the recovery of tourism industry at large.
TRTF-Nepal is a task force, jointly sprouted by PATA Nepal Chapter and SKAL Nepal; bringing industry veterans, professionals, and leading global tourism organizations as "Advisors"; the prominent tourism associations in Nepal as "Associational Patrons"; the key agencies/organizations working in safety and security concerns of travelers as "Health and Safety Patrons"; and the NTO, Nepal Tourism Board as "Industry Patron" to intensify the collective efforts for tourism recovery. Deepak R Joshi, Former CEO of NTB and Task Force Board of ‘Rebuilding.Travel’, an international initiative for global tourism recovery, is invited to gear up the necessary actions/programs as a Coordinator for this esteem initiative. And, Mr. Khem Lakai, Hon. Treasurer and HCD-Coordinator for PATA Nepal Chapter will be the Spokesperson while the secretariat of the taskforce will be handled by PATA Nepal CEO, Suresh Singh Budal.
