Amid Coronavirus threat, Dharamshala Hotel association suggests foreigners to postpone visit

Hotel Association of Dharamshala on Thursday suggested foreigners to postpone their visit to Dharamshala in the wake of the spread of coronavirus in China and its threat elsewhere.

Ashwani Bamba, President of Hotel Association of Dharamshala said, "We are now suggesting the foreigner tourists who have booked rooms in the hotels here to postpone their visits."

However, the government has not issued any advisory regarding postponing the visit of foreign tourists. Sunaina Sharma, Deputy Director of Tourism department said that officials have been visiting the hotels in and around Mcleodganj and circulating a declaration form to get the details about the foreign visitors.

When asked about the suggestion by the Hotel Association of Dharmashala, She said, "It must be their personal suggestion. The government has not issued any advisory of that kind."

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Kangra district, Raghav Sharma, said, "According to the directions from Government of India we are registering all the persons who have visited China and southeast Asian countries after January 1, 2020, and we have a list of 20 such persons of Kangra district."

"They recently visited China in January 2020. We have contacted ten of them till Wednesday. A team of medical experts has monitored them. No symptoms of Coronavirus were seen but we advised them to stay in their homes at least for a fortnight. We are trying to contact the rest of the persons," said Sharma.

"Apart from this, we have issued an advisory to the hotel and travel agents that if any person comes to them, he or she requires to fill up a form giving details whether they visited China or other South East Asian countries in recent time," said Deputy Commissioner.

"We also had a meeting with the Tibetan administration and gave them declaration forms.