It has been over a week now since trekking activities more like partially started in Nepal. With that, Nepal has already seen the arrival of few number of tourists as of now. The Himalayan nation is thriving on to bring the covid safe mountain tourism into, however with the covid situation on hand it would be very hard to create the environment to gain the flow of tourists to Nepal.
A couple of days back, Trekking Agents Association of Nepal (TAAN) highlighted the key notes for trekking and mountaineering along with the available trekking areas for now. There were 12 of them ready to welcome the tourists. While the Ghandruk area and Khumbu is still not available.
Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Trekking circuit is halted for now.
The Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality has recently come up with the new notice where they have mentioned that the couple of people from the area has been tested positive for the corona virus which is why the municipality has decided to close the are for a while. As per the notice, they will allow tourist to travel to the area from 10 Kartik (Nepali calendar). The municipality has also mentioned about the PCR negative report which should taken 72 hr prior to entering the area. On top of that, the PCR reports taken would only be valued from the specific hospitals as mentioned in the notice by the Municipality.
Dashain holidays and the Covid-19 strikes.
TAAN has written a letter to its members regarding certain tourism sectors and organisations which would remain closed for 5 days or so.
TIMS counter, Maligaun,
Annapurna Conservative Area Project (ACAP)
Immigration Department
Nepal Tourism Board (NTB)
Will remain closed for 5 days from 23 October to 27 October as mentioned in the letter written by TAAN. The unpleasant situation of the corona virus and the Dashain is the only reason behind this. Apart from that, many other services are modest and limited at this time due to the Covid-19 services.
Moving on, Nepal might have seen the arrival of tourists but the tourism industry could still take a lot of time to revive from this situation. Tourism actually has not been resumed in Nepal. While the Khumbu area did see the positive cases of the virus, tourism activities might be carried out carefully even in the mountains.
October has nearly come to an end and the big news about the tourism in Nepal might actually come in between the second week of next month as the government intends on resuming tourism from mid November. While the Nepal Government might plan to resume wide range of tourism activities from then but trekking might still be the top priority this time. However, the dates for the resumption still cannot be promised looking at the current situation.
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