Foreign tourists must stay in 10-day hotel quarantine

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) has issued a notice related to flight operations and management of air travel citing the need to take necessary steps to stop the spread of the new variant of the coronavirus in Nepal.

As per the notice issued by the ministry, foreign travellers arriving in Nepal via air route must present a negative PCR report for the COVID-19 for which the swab collection should have been done only 72 hours within the date of arrival. Foreign tourists must also stay in 10-day hotel quarantine upon their arrival and need to present a proof that they have booked a hotel for the same.

The Civil Aviation Ministry has also stated that the concerned airline companies must issue the boarding pass to passengers only after verifying the related documents. It also has mentioned that the responsibility to transfer foreign tourists arriving via air to their hotels and making sure they stay in quarantine lies with the respective travel agencies.

Similarly, MoCTCA has stated that Nepali nationals arriving by air must present a negative PCR report for the COVID-19 for which the swab collection should have been done only 72 hours within the date of arrival. Nepali nationals too must stay in 10-day hotel or home quarantine. The ministry has said that the responsibility to check whether a Nepali national arriving by air is in quarantine lies with the concerned local level.

As per the notice, the District COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre and the local level has been assigned the responsibility to ascertain whether the concerned person is in hotel or home quarantine and must provide updates on a regular basis to the central COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre and the Home Ministry.

Moreover, only those foreign nationals who are in transit via Tribhuvan International Airport will be allowed the permission to depart from Nepal. If a foreign national has arrived in Nepal before the issue was noticed then the concerned person will be allowed to leave Nepal via land or air route, the notice states.

The MoCTCA has also mentioned in the notice that foreign nationals who want to depart to the destination from where they arrived must present a negative PCR report for the COVID-19 for which the swab collection should have been done only 72 hours before their departure date.

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has further stated that the other provisions of the ‘Tourist Arrival Management Measures 2077’ that was issued on March 18 will remain as it is.