Of the 75 rooms in Pokhara’s Landmark Hotel, there were guests only in 25 rooms on Sunday and in 20 rooms on Monday. Guests in five of the rooms shortened their trips and returned.
These examples clearly show that strikes have a negative impact on the tourism industry. Tourism entrepreneurs say that the flow of tourists started declining after dates for the strike were announced.
“The number of tourists visiting Pokhara declined drastically in the last few days, leading to empty seats in the Kathmandu-Pokhara flight, while the number of tourists returning from Pokhara has increased,” Gautam Baral, station manager of Buddha Air in Pokhara, says.
Baral further says that many tourists decided to stay back in Kathmandu fearing that something unwanted might happen during strike while some altogether cancelled their trips to Nepal.
In the same season last year, Buddha Air conducted eight flights a day on the Kathmandu-Pokhara-Kathmandu route, but as the passenger flow has declined due to the strike, it reduced the number flights on the route to six.
“Many tourists have returned from Pokhara fearing that they might miss their flights out of Nepal if they get stuck in Pokhara due to the strike. Due to a lesser passenger flow from Kathmandu, we had to reduce our flights,” Baral says.
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“This season -- that started on March -- was slowly gaining momentum but after the notice of the strike was spread, tourists shortened their trips and/or returned,” Om Prakash Pandey, the proprietor of Landmark Hotel, says.
Not only did many tourists cancelled their bookings, Pandey says, but more tourists were leaving Pokhara than arriving.
Tourists’ shortening their trips and cancelling bookings for the peak season has tourism entrepreneurs worried.
“As hotels have started going empty, it has become difficult for us to manage even the operating costs,” Bharat Raj Parajuli, manager of Peace Plaza and president of Western Regional Hotel Association, says.
Parajuli says that there were many Indian tourists who came in India registered vehicles until Sunday, but they left early on Monday morning so that they could cross the border before the strike began.
Tourism entrepreneurs had expressed a common view that the strikes should not be announced -- at least in the peak tourist season -- as this will have a negative impact in the tourism industry. Tourists cancel their plans for security and safety reasons as well as to avoid hassle while travelling when strikes are announced.
According to a study carried out by Nepal Rastra Bank, the total annual tourist arrivals via air to Nepal had increased consecutively in the last five years in spite of varied spans of general strike days in Nepal.
However, analysis of the monthly tourist arrivals data shows a lagged negative effect of general strike on tourist arrivals. It means that arrivals numbers for a particular month is not affected by the strike days during the same month but its impact is observed in later months.
Som Thapa, president of Pokhara Tourism Council, says that tourists panic when they hear that strikes have been announced. “The number of tourists declined this year due to various natural disasters and now this strike called by political parties will further lead to more declines,” Thapa adds.
Pokhara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) has requested political parties to find an alternative to strikes saying that while the strikes do not benefit the parties, the industries also have to bear a loss of about Rs 2 billion a day due to closures.
“We could not protest against the strike and run our industries as the government has not assured us of security during strikes,” Bindu Kumar Thapa, president of PCCI, says.
Issuing a statement, PCCI has requested political parties to call off strikes as many tourists have cancelled their trips and factories, businesses and the common people are suffering.
