Several businessmen who took hotels on the lease before the Kumbh Mela are facing huge losses and many of them have returned the establishment to the owners. Some of them are even planning to move to other states. Around 60% of all the hotels in the district are run on lease and operators of these facilities are suffering huge losses due to the Covid-induced curfew,'' said Vibhas Mishra, president of the Haridwar hoteliers association.
In Mussoorie, hoteliers claim that close to 90% of the hotels have shut operations in the past one-and-a-half months," he added.
As the government has not announced any relief packages for the hotel industry, these businessmen are planning to move to some other state in search of a better business environment. It is a worrisome trend and does not augur well for the economy of the state. Hospitality is a major industry for our state and the government should support the industry to prevent negative impacts on employment and economy,” said Sandeep Sahni, president of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Uttarakhand.
A hotelier who runs a chain of hotels in Nainital, Kausani, and Ranikhet said that he had already paid almost 90 percent of the lease amount to the owner in March but the second wave of Covid-19 ruined all prospects of business as hotels had to be shut in the wake of restrictions.
“I had taken a loan to pay the lease amount but now I am liquidating my existing assets to pay the installments to the bank. I have been in the industry for decades but I don’t have the stamina or the strength left to recover from this kind of unprecedented situation,” Sharma said, adding that the state government not formulating any clear-cut policy to help out hoteliers is another disappointment.
The Nainital hotel and restaurant association officials say that there are at least two dozen hotels in the town which are run on lease and the financial condition of almost all of them is bad.
Speaking to TOI, Praveen Sharma, a hotelier who runs a chain of hotels in Nainital, Kausani and Ranikhet said that he had already paid almost 90 percent of the lease amount to the owner in March but the second wave of Covid-19 ruined all prospects of business as hotels had to be shut in the wake of restrictions.
