Nepal Tourism Year 2011

Nepal on Friday kicked off Nepal Tourism Year (NTY) 2011 campaign officially with the hope of attracting at least a million foreign tourists next year. Given the fact that tourist arrival by air in 2009 was less than 400,000, the one million target may sound a little ambitious, but at the same time, it feels bizarre that a country blessed with such stunning natural beauty still attracts less than half a million tourists a year. If you factor in our next-door neighbors – China and India – with a combined population of more than two billion and having fast-growing outbound tourists, there is no reason why we should not be able to attract one million tourists in 2011.



One reason that has kept many tourists from visiting Nepal is political instability, mainly the chronic and unpredictable bandas (general strikes). But there is good news on this front too: The politicians have expressed commitment to shun bandas for the year 2011. Top leaders from 16 major parties – including the Maoists, Nepali Congress and CPN-UML – have already committed in writing that their parties will not call bandas in 2011. We thank all the 16 parties for their commitment and ask the remaining fringe parties in the parliament to join in. Also, if we avoid bandas in 2011, we might be able to shun the banda culture forever. We also ask each party to strive for that goal. Hopefully, by 2011, we will also have promulgated our new constitution and elected a new government, thus making the country stable and peaceful.



But this alone is not going to be enough. People associated with the tourism sector will have to do their bit as well. Ministry of Tourism and Nepal Tourism Board, as the two main responsible government agencies, must spearhead the preparation, awareness building and promotional campaign for NYT 2011. Nepal often lacks good campaigns abroad for such mega events and Nepal’s promotion abroad, as a tourism destination, has mainly been through word of mouth. We must do a massive campaign in India and China to realize our tourist arrival targets. If we succeed in attracting as many tourists as we wish to from China and India in 2011, it will build a base for sustained tourist arrival from the two neighbors in the future. Though Nepal has less than a year for preparations, we should still do whatever it takes to add more tourism products, new tourist destinations and improve the quality of the existing ones. Together, let’s make NTY 2011 a success.

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