The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has had an unprecedented impact on the global economy as the lethal virus disease has already gripped most nations. Tough measures, including lockdowns, have been in place globally to contain the spread of the virus. Such restrictions have been helpful in dealing with the pandemic. But these steps have proved to be detrimental to the entire economic sector. Keeping this in mind, numerous nations have recently gone for lifting or relaxing restrictions, as a move to reopen their respective economies. As these fresh measures, however, have led to a rapid rise in COVID-19 infections in several cities of the United States and other countries, the authorities concerned are now imposing lockdowns and other restrictions again. In such a situation, tourism has now been one of the worst-hit sectors worldwide with the cross-country mobility of people coming to a complete halt.

Tourism is the world's largest and fastest-growing sector generating a lot of revenues for the countries and providing jobs to millions of people. But this sector has continued to suffer a severe setback ever since the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan of China in late last December. Because tourism is one of the most susceptible sectors, even trivial unfavourable incidents or situations affect it badly. The tourism industry in Nepal has now been passing through the most difficult period in its seven-decade history. This sector used to be the second highest foreign exchange earner for the country after the remittance sector. As a multidimensional sector, tourism also generates a lot of direct and indirect jobs and supports many other auxiliary industries like horticulture, vegetable farming, livestock farming and handicraft. But, the country’s tourism industry has suffered an immense loss of about Rs. 34 billion during the 83-day strict lockdown alone.

As the pandemic worsened the global tourism scenario, the government had to put off the Visit Nepal 2020 that aimed at welcoming 2 million international tourists into the country. The loss of the country’s tourism industry is estimated to reach Rs. 41 billion by July 22. The government has announced that the existing relaxed lockdown will be in place until the third week of this month. As per an assessment made by a joint study team of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) and the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), the tourism and aviation sectors are losing about Rs. 10 billion every month owing to COVID-19. The government has announced some relief measures such as refinancing, concessional loan and extension of VAT payment period for the recovery of the tourism industry. It has also pledged to provide 75 per cent discount on aircraft parking charges and 50 per cent discount on licences and renewal fees.

The pandemic has hit the investment worth Rs. 1 trillion and put about 800,000 tourism jobs in jeopardy. However, the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has issued a Health Safety Protocol to be applied while resuming hotels, restaurants and other tourism businesses. It is also drafting a protocol for operating aviation services. Amid heightened uncertainties, some European countries like Italy and Spain have gradually started resuming their tourism and other service sectors. Nepal should also prepare for reopening this vital industry steadily.