SHILLONG, May 7: The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a body blow to the tourism industry of Meghalaya.
The slide for the sector, which contributes substantially to state’s revenue, started ahead of the outbreak of the dreaded pandemic last year.
Not just the government, people engaged in the sector, too, have been hit hard.
As almost all tourist spots in the state are shut and the rooms in hotels and guest houses are lying empty, their owners and employees are at their wit’s end.
Bansan Kupar Lyngdoh, who owns two such properties in Shillong, said prior to the restrictions, he was doing brisk business. However, it got affected since April due to numerous cancellations.
Parambir Singh, who is the president of Federation of Shillong Hotels, echoed Lyngdoh when he said business was as usual prior to the second wave of the pandemic when a lot of tourists visited the state.
Taking note of the surge in the COVID-19 cases, the state government had banned the entry of tourists from last month.
“The impact of this situation will be felt like last year. We had somehow managed then after many hotels were turned into quarantine centres,” Singh said.
Jiwat Vaswani, who owns quite a few restaurants and hotels in Shillong and in different parts of the state, said the flow of tourists had plummeted by almost 50 per cent from before the enforcement of COVID-19 curbs.
“As long as COVID is there, we feel the situation will remain like this,” he said.
A tourist taxi driver, who is sitting idle now, said he and many others like him are finding it tough to eke out a living.
