The tourism industry and entrepreneurs are facing difficult times due to the ongoing strikes of the Madhesi Front for the last three months. According to them, tourists have stopped coming to Lumbini -- the birthplace of Gautam Buddha.
Mithun Shrestha, vice chairman of Siddhartha Hotel Association of Nepal, said that the hotel entrepreneurs facing hard time as there is no sign of tourists coming during the main season.
The hotels in Lumbini saw a surge in cancellation of bookings after the devastating earthquake of April 25. Tourists gradually started coming here after messages that Lumbini was safe but the Madhes protest has once again hit the tourism industry hard. According to tourism entrepreneurs, many tourists coming from India via Sunauli border returned back as Bhairahawa was the focal point of the protests.
The tourists from third countries, who used to come to Lumbini from the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA), have also stopped coming this year due to the ongoing protests. The tourists who booked hotels in Lumbini three months ago have cancelled their bookings.
General Secretary of Siddhartha Hotel Association of Nepal Lila Mani Sharma said that the earthquake and the ongoing Madhes strikes have completely choked the tourism industry this year.
“The tourism sector in Lumbini already bore a big loss as timely message about the place being safe after the earthquake was not disseminated,” said Sharma. “The ongoing protests have compelled the tourism entrepreneurs to bear additional loss.”
Internal and foreign tourists come to Lumbini from mid September to mid December, according to tourism entrepreneurs. Apart from hotels and tour guides, travel agencies and sculpture shops are staying idle as the number of tourist from mainly India and other countries like Thailand, Myanmar, Combodia and Sri Lanka is almost zero this year.
Altogether there are 54 hotels in Lumbini. Siddhartha Hotel Association of Nepal informed that these hotels can accommodate 3,500 people in 1,600 beds.
According to information center of Lumbini Development Fund, 13,317 tourists from third countries came there in August. Likewise, 4000 Indian tourists visited Lumbini last year while only 72 Indian tourists have come this year. In the meantime, only 1,172 Nepali citizens have visited Lumbini this year against a total number of 19,168 last year, informed Dilip Rai of the information center of Lumbini Development Fund.
Out of 1,33,000 international tourist in 2014, more than half of them visited Lumbini from September to December.
Related story
Tourism revival task force formed to revitalize tourism industr...
