With Covid 2.0 wreaking havoc, hoteliers await dues from first wave

Shillong, Apr 22: Many hoteliers in the city are still waiting for the state government to pay its dues that were incurred during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, almost a year on into the crisis.
Meghalaya is entering another lockdown in all but name, with outside tourists banned from entering the state until next month due to the second wave of the coronavirus. This is poised to hit hoteliers hard once again.
Last year, hotels and resorts were used as temporary accommodation for health workers and other frontline government workers who could not return to their homes during the initial stage of the pandemic when fear and insecurity was at its maximum extent.
Today, several hotel owners, who requested anonymity, told Highland Post that they appreciated the need to close Meghalaya’s borders to tourists but “at the same time we request the government to clear our outstanding dues.”
The hospitality sector, once a big growth area for Meghalaya’s economy, has been hurt since the end of 2019, when the state was thrown into disarray by protests against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act.
Besides just paying the dues owed to them, the government should even consider a bailout package for the industry to cope with the effects of these successive hits to the sector.
With Meghalaya only reopening to tourists in December, nine months after it closed its borders because of Covid-19, tourism was just starting to pick up before, once again, having to shut.
“We have been suffering right from December 2019 when the law and order problem started affecting tourism in Meghalaya even before the national lockdown but now the future is even more grim because the tourism industry will be the last to pick up under such circumstances,” they stated, adding that the government should come up with a plan to help hoteliers with staff salaries, electricity bills and rents.