NTB, TAAN signs MoU to create short-term jobs for 1,000 tourism workers

On the initiation of the Nepal Tourism Board in collaboration with the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal (TAAN), short-term jobs are to be created for 1,000 people from the tourism sector.

 A project titled "Sustainable Tourism for Livelihood Recovery” launched by the NTB and supported by the UNDP is targeted at the workers of the tourism sector, one of the hardest-hit areas from COVID-19 pandemic. NTB and TAAN signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this recently.

The project is expected to provide relief, to some extent, to those workers who lost employment due to COVID-19 crisis, according to NTB Vice-Chair Chandra Rijal.

NTB Executive Director Dhananjaya Regmi said they were hopeful that the project would help address the unemployment issue in the tourism sector a little bit and retain tourism businesses and workers.

Under the project, the NTB aims to offer works ranging from around 70,000 man-days to 100,000 man-days. The NTB is planning to come with such programmes for the relief of the tourism workforce in the days ahead, too.

The NTB has already signed this kind of agreement with the Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN), the Nepal Association of Tour and Travel Agents (NATTA), and the Nepal Association of Rafting Agencies (NARA).

The NTB will be spending a budget worth around 2 million 50 thousand US dollars: one million US dollars on its own and 1 million 50 thousand US dollars to be supported by the UNDP for the implementation of the two-and-half year project.

The NTB aims to provide short-term jobs to 50,000 workers in total mainly from the tourism sector under this project. Besides, it sets a goal of offering jobs for over 2,000 people in partnership with local levels across the country.