By CK Khanal
Kathmandu, Aug. 9: After the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, about 70,000 workers involved in trekking and mountaineering sector in the country’s tourism industry have lost their jobs since the end of last year. They face a grim prospect ahead as its not sure when the situation will return to normalcy.
Due to the pandemic, trekking guides and workers, who generally get employment for only five to six months a year to manage livelihood of their family for round the year, have been badly affected thanks to the halt in trekking and mountaineering activities in the high season of spring.
In Nepal, spring (September, October and November) and autumn (March, April and May) are two major seasons for trekking and mountaineering. Because of the pandemic, the major season of spring was completely hampered for trekking and mountaineering activities while the upcoming autumn season, too, is likely to be disturbed as cases of infection are surging.
Kapil Pandey, president of Nepal Tourism Workers Union, said that most workers involved in trekking and mountaineering sector were running out of their savings and would face problem in the near future even to sustain themselves and their family.
“So far, most of our friends are managing their living with savings from last year, but they are now on the verge of severe problem as they went completely jobless in spring season and similar situation is likely to repeat in the upcoming autumn season,” Pandey said.
Unlike in other sectors, the trekking and tourism workers mostly work freelance based on packages rather than on salary basis. The nature of jobs has also made them more vulnerable during the time of this pandemic as they did not get any payments from trekking and expedition companies without works.
He said that the government should provide alternative employment opportunities to affected labourers to support in their living until the tourism sector returns to normalcy.
According to Dhananjay Regmi, chief executive officer of Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), around 60,000 to 70,000 trekking guides and other workers have lost their jobs to the pandemic.
Of the total workers losing jobs in this hard time, some have returned home for agriculture and some are well-off and do not join alternative jobs provided by the government, he said, adding that around 15,000 were estimated to be in need of alternative jobs to sustain their living.
According to the data provided by the Department of Tourism, a total of 17,625 trekking guides, 4,200 tourist guides and 266 river guides have obtained licenses from the department by the end of fiscal year 2018/19.
Tourism entrepreneurs have said that large number of porters and non-licenced trekking and tourist guides had also been involved in the trekking and mountaineering sector.
Khum Bahadur Subedi, president of Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal (TAAN), said that the number of workers involved in trekking and mountaineering sector was much higher than the estimates of the NTB. He claimed that the number of people working in the sector was around 350,000.
Minister for Culture, Tourism

and Civil Aviation Yogesh Pokharel has pledged to provide alternative works to tourism workers in cleaning and maintaining trekking routes and mountains and construction works of airports.
NTB CEO Regmi also said that the board was working to provide alternative jobs to affected tourism workers by managing funds from different sources.
Regmi said that the NTB had already signed an agreement with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for a fund of Rs. 14.2 million and was signing another agreement for the fund worth Rs. 35 million with the same organisation to use it for creating alternative employment opportunities for tourism workers affected by the pandemic.
He said that the NTB was also preparing to use the funds generated from the Trekkers Information Management System (TIMS) for providing alternative employment opportunities to affected workers.
He said that the joint fund of NTB and TAAN has around Rs. 200 million while the workers’ welfare fund has Rs. 60 million in reserve. “Currently we are conducting auditing works of both the funds and also preparing procedures to use this fund for the welfare of labourers in this hard time,” he said.
“We do not have shortage of fund to create alternative jobs for tourism workers facing problems after losing their jobs. But, we have not been able to implement it due to the growing cases of COVID-19 infection,” he said.
Trekking and mountaineering are high-yield tourism activities in Nepal. Of the total tourist arrivals of 1,197,191 in the year of 2019, a total of 171,937 visitors were involved in trekking and mountaineering activities.