RSS reporter Sharma feted with ‘Mountain Tourism Journalism Award-2077 BS’

Kathmandu - Rastriya Samachar Samiti (RSS)’s Pokhara correspondent Jamuna Barsha Sharma has bagged the ‘Mountain Tourism Journalism Award-2077 BS’. The Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal (TAAN) Western Regional Association awarded Sharma on the occasion of its 27th annual general meeting held in Pokhara today. On the occasion, Minister for Industry, Tourism, Forest and Environment in Gandaki Province, Bikash Lamsal awarded the RSS reporter with Rs 10,000 cash prize, letter of honour and a shawl. Sharma was awarded in recognition of her contribution in the promotion of mountaineering tourism by means of journalism.

Minister Lamsal said that the COVID-19 pandemic had brought a very extreme situation in the tourism industry and the government was effortful to promote the tourism despite this health crisis. According to him, the Gandaki Province had been bearing a loss of over Rs 130 million in tourism industry due to COVID-19.

He was hopeful that the Fund worth one billion rupees allocated by the government to protect the tourism profession from the adverse effects of the COVID-19 would reach in the hands of the tourism entrepreneurs. Likewise, TAAN Western Regional Association’s former President Tikaram Sapkota said that there was over Rs 5 trillion of investment in the tourism sector in the country. He further shared that due to COVID-19’s impact on tourism sector, around 75,000 people working in various capacities in the hospitality/tourism sector lost their jobs.