DIMAPUR, JUNE 12 (MExN): The department of tourism today clarified that shortfall of management in the hospitality trade had prompted the Government to pave way for a policy-decision to privatise the tourist lodges “not only at Dimapur and Kohima but elsewhere in the other districts provided capable entrepreneurs come forward to manage these establishments.”
Replying to an earlier statement made by NPCC president Hokheto Sumi, Commissioner & Secretary for tourism Khekiye K Sema said in a statement: “It is precisely because we have very less infrastructure that the need for privatization has been felt so that the private entrepreneurs can upgrade the services being rendered to the tourist and customers in a more professional manner. By privatizing there will be no reduction in the number of beds available in the Tourist Lodges but will instead be in a better condition run as a private venture for upcoming local entrepreneurs who would look at management with a difference.”
The department’s argument is that as government servants, officers and staff in tourist lodges lack professionalism in the hospitality trade as they cater only “to the basic problems of accommodation with no real need for hospitality as a part of management” as practiced in administrative rest houses.
“The department would like to clarify that ever since the inception of the Tourism department the Government staffs have been managing the infrastructure such as the Tourist Lodges in various districts. It is a fact that the accommodation facilities for tourists are very less but the management of such infrastructure by the Government servants has proved to be ineffective in terms of the overhead expenditure being incurred in each of these establishments without accruing reasonable percentage of revenue returns.”
Khekiye also pointed out that all necessary codal formalities have been followed in order to get the best suited entrepreneurs to manage these establishments and also provide revenue to the department for the use of the same in the form of lease or rent. “Given the circumstances the overhead expenses for the management of these establishments will be eliminated and the revenue earned would then be considered as a clear profit.”
‘While it may be said that the officers and staff presently posted in these establishments will be displaced, the present concern of the department is to seriously take up our responsibility as a facilitator to the process of communitization of tourism where the community themselves are beginning to take the responsibility of management on their own and that our officers and staff would be re-deployed in the various districts which has so far been very poorly covered at the field-level, so that the coordination and interaction between the community and the department is improved in a more effective manner.”
The secretary further said some of the officers would also be re-deployed beyond the state boundaries in cosmopolitan hubs such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Guwahati and Shillong “so that Nagaland tourism can be sold to the outside world in a more effective manner now that interest are beginning to grow both within the circle of domestic tourist and the foreign tourist to visit Nagaland.”
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