by Marcus Cotton Co-owner, Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge, Pokhara, Nepal, since 2001.
Like so many parts of the world we are on lockdown (day 23 at 16/04/20) and support this as a right response by the government to manage spread of CV19 and ensure that health services can cope. So far Nepal has only 16 cases, but figures are rising inevitably as testing is increased.
Tiger Mountain is closed but staff are all on full pay for an initial 6 months (March to August) with one third at the lodge for security and maintenance as well as to maintain our Fire Brigade as it is the hot, dry and windy season. Two thirds are either on paid leave or working from home.
Much time is spent researching eco-friendly cleaning agents that can be sourced locally or homemade to ensure that, when we reopen, we can have CV19 applicable hygiene without destroying the environment. Our staff are fully aware about the virus and we have protocols in place to handle and suspected infection.
We feel deeply for our guests and well wishers and know that, together, we will pass through these challenging times. Our greatest hope is that real change and focus on sustainability in tourism will result from this golden opportunity to stop, re-think and change direction. We must all remember that tourism in not, and never has been, a right, but an enormous privilege granted to a tiny minority of the world’s population. It behoves all of us, so privileged both to travel and to receive travellers, to be enormously sensitive and aware of the nature and ramifications of that privilege.
