Hyderabad: The Hotels and Restaurants Association of Telangana State (HRATS) on Thursday met chief secretary Somesh Kumar and submitted representations to consider the staff of the hospitality sector as frontline workers and to put them on priority list for ongoing COVID-19 vaccination.
In a representation, the association’s president Ashok Hemrajani said that hotels and restaurants have been amongst the worst hit in the COVID-19 lockdown period, leading to severe financial distress and liquidity due to restrictions on travel and other such related activities.
Even during the COVID-19 peak last year, the member hotels had provided rooms for quarantine, for the accommodation of medicos and later were even attached to a few private hospitals and extensions, he said, adding that some of the members even provided food at camps for stranded migrants and others.
Ashok Hemrajani said that after lockdown and upon reopening of their business units, the safety of its guest and its team members and their families has been of paramount importance to its members.
“The members of the HRTAS have opened businesses following all guidelines and protocols as defined and laid out for the hospitality sector by the WHO, ministries of home, tourism, health and family welfare,” Hemrajani said. The members and industry is committed to continue to follow them till the time the country jointly overcome this pandemic completely, he added.
Stating that Telangana is a safe destination to travel, he said that HRATS assures that hotels and restaurants are safe to stay at and to dine in respectively. He also appealed to the state government to consider hospitality staff as Frontline workers and to put them on the priority list for COVID vaccination.
