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Lack of guidelines for hotels hits revenue collection

Rasuwa: The government´s failure to enforce a new guideline for hotel operation in land owned by national parks has affected revenue collection from the hotels and guesthouses operating within the ambit of Langtang National Park.

The operation guidelines, which was submitted to the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation under the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation a long time back for annual renewal, is yet to be approved.

Chief of Langtang National Park Bed Kumar Dhakal said that the collection of revenue from the hotels and guesthouses operating in the park area was hampered since the beginning of the current fiscal year. This has also affected the renewal process and management of the hotels.

Altogether 55 hotels and guesthouses are operated in Langtang, Gosaikunda and Thadpati areas of the national park. Dhakal said that the department of national park and wildlife conservation is expected to approve the decision to implement the hotel guidelines which classifies the hotels and guesthouses into ´a, ´b´, ´c´ and ´d´ categories.

The park had been collecting Rs 60,000 in revenue from each of the hotels and guesthouses enlisted in the first category, Rs 45,000 from the second, Rs 30,000 from the third and Rs 10,000 from the fourth category of the hospitality institutions.

This time around, however, the national park has not been able to make decisions on the amount of revenue to be collected from the hotels since the department is yet to approve its proposal.

Chief of national park Dhakal informed that the revenue collected from hotels and guesthouses is provisioned for the conservation of biodiversity and natural resources and tourism development.

He added that the park is going to introduce new hotel operation guidelines with aim to systematically manage the hotels, guesthouses and tea stalls operated in the park areas.

Once the renewed hotel operation guidelines come to effect, hotels and guesthouses will be managed through a tender process.

source:republica,11 jan 2014