By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Sept. 8: Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has launched a campaign in collaboration with the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal (TAAN) to provide short-term employment to 1,000 workers involved in the tourism sector.

The campaign has been launched under the umbrella of the two-and-a-half-years Sustainable Tourism for Livelihood Recovery Project (STLRP) initiated by the board with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help people involved in Nepali tourism financially recover from the COVID-19 pandemic by creating temporary jobs.

Dr. Dhananjay Regmi, chief executive officer of the board, hoped that the campaign would help address the problem of mass unemployment created in the tourism sector by the pandemic. “To sustain tourism in Nepal, we must keep workers from leaving the sector. That is why we have introduced this programme. It may not be much but it is a start,” he said.

Similarly, Chandra Rijal, vice-chairman of NTB, expected the larger project and the campaign to provide some relief to the tourism workers who are currently struggling with unemployment. He also said that the stakeholders had learnt a great deal from the coronavirus crisis and stated that the NTB and TAAN would work together to develop Nepal’s tourism in the coming days.

Under the employment campaign, NTB will provide 70,000 man-days to 100,000 man-days of work to tourism employees who are presently jobless.
Praising the initiative, TAAN President Khum Bahadur Subedi said that the trekking sector was vital for the health of the Nepali tourism industry and called on everyone to help the people involved in this field stay afloat.
The NTB has previously signed agreements with the Hotel Association Nepal (HAN), Nepal Association of Tour and Travel Agents (NATTA) and Nepal Association of Rafting Agencies to implement similar employment schemes within the STLRP.

STLRP aims to provide short-term jobs to 5,000 tourism workers. Of its total budget of US$ 2.05 million, UNDP will provide US$ 1.05 million while NTB will put in US$ 1 million.
Separately, the board hopes to provide employment to a further 2,000 individuals by partnering with local levels across the
country.