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weekend lockdown imposed in Uttar Pradesh from July 10 has dashed all hopes of a partial revival of the tourism industry, hotels in particular, in the Taj city, as occupancies have again fallen to zero percent.

The tourism industry has already suffered a loss of over Rs 2,000 crore during the lockdown period, claims the president of Hotels and Restaurant owners association in Agra, Ramesh Wadhwa.

With the Union and state governments going into the unlock-I from June 8, hotels in the city had started seeing footfalls on weekends, with tourists, mainly from the NCR, coming to spend a night or two and the occupancy rate, which was zero during the two months lockdown, had climbed to almost about 10 percent.

But with the state government declaring lockdowns on weekends, the situation is back to square one, with the tourism industry continuing to bleed.

Vice-president of Jaypee palace Agra, Hari Sukumar, said that the hotels had started receiving guests and there was a little hope of things getting back to normal.

He said, “though they only have one wing of the hotel with 20 rooms operational, 15/16 rooms were booked on the weekends and we were planning to open some more areas if things had continued to improve. But with the state government declaring lockdowns on weekends business is again near zero”.

According to the hoteliers, the main scare that weekend tourists from Delhi have is that they can get stuck in the city indefinitely if the government someday decides to extend the weekends lockdowns to weekdays.

“Most people were coming here to take a break from the monotony of staying indoors in their homes for long times. But the thought of getting stuck here has driven them away,” said a hotelier.

“This on and off business situation is not good,” said the hoteliers, while adding that “frustrations” are building up among those involved in the trade.

India’s leading hotel chain Crystal Sarovar Premiere’s general manager in Agra Vivek Mahajan echoed similar views and said that bookings have gone down from 10 percent to zero. He added, “We can’t run huge premises on the basis of 2-3 clients. The government should consider our plight and lift the lockdown on weekends”.

Wadhwa said that tourism is the backbone of the economy and Agra stands on it, but during the lockdown, Taj city faced huge losses. “We urge the government to consider some relief for the industry and make rules flexible like Delhi in operating restaurants and opening monuments,” he said.