West Bengal: Darjeeling hotels to open for tourists from next week

KOLKATA: Hotels and restaurants in Darjeeling and Kalimpong are finally opening from next Tuesday after remaining shut for over two months providing the much needed excitement to depressed city tourists who have slowly started moving out of their homes maintaining precautions even amidst the pandemic.
In a late evening circular, the district released a circular stating operation of hotels and restaurants to be allowed in areas outside the containment zones maintaining social distancing and health hygiene protocols.
“It’s a great news. We have been holding meetings for the past several weeks to pave the path for reopening of the hotels that can boost tourism back to the hills. With people slowly leaving their homes and opting for short vacations, we are hopeful to see tourists coming back to the hills in the next few weeks. Once the trains become operational, more tourists are likely to come,” said Pradip Lama, secretary of the Darjeeling Association of Travel Agents.
As Covid-19 forced people indoors, hotels in Darjeeling had decided to close down from July 1 saying it was not feasible to operate under the circumstances.
The hills host nearly 4.5 lakh tourists annually and with tourism being the backbone of the local economy, the decision of shut down left 10,000 odd people associated with 400 odd hotels in Darjeeling jobless.
“The peak tourism season of mid March – mid June is over but we had been getting plenty of queries for the next best season that starts from October. In fact, we had queries from multiple city tourists for bookings on mid-September. After the allowance, we have confirmed their booking,” said Debanjan Bose of Spring Brook Homestay in Darjeeling. Saibal Pathak, who runs a chain of homestays in the hills added: “We will start sanitisation operations from Sunday itself. With three lockdown days in the next week, hopefully bookings will pour in from the week after that.”
The news left the city tourists excited. “The long stay at home has been suffocating and for the last few weeks, I have been making queries in the hills. Now that the hotels are opening, I am going for a long drive to the hills this month itself,” said Sutirtha Basu, a resident of Jadavpur who makes sure to visit the hills atleast twice every year.