A Nepal Pavilion is representing the country at the Expo but Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), the government´s tourism promotion agency, has not opened a stall there even though space has been provisioned for it. [break]
According to Binayak Shah, director of Nepal Pavilion Expo 2010 Shanghai, NTB is not promoting tourism destinations in Nepal till the 77th Day of the Expo, which will run for a further 104 days till October 31st.
China is the second biggest market for Nepal´s travel and tourism trade after India. At least 30,000 visitors come to the Nepal Pavilion on a daily basis and it is expected that during the entire period of the Expo, more than 10 million visitors will have visited it.
"If we can induce one half percent of those visitors to come to Nepal, it would be a great contribution to Nepal´s tourism boom", a tourism entrepreneur, who does not want to be named, told myrepublica.com.
According to him, the Shanghai Expo is the most attractive and appropriate platform for Nepal to sell its tourism products through proper techniques.
Shah of the Nepal Pavilion said NTB has not even given the brochures to be distributed to prospective visitors and people curious about Nepal.
According to another source at NTB, initially the tourism promotion entity did not show any interest in the Shanghai Expo and in participation in it though it was present at every meeting regarding Nepal´s participation.
Meanwhile Nandini Thapa, director of NTB for tourism marketing and promotion,denied NTB´s lack of interest in the Shanghai Expo and said there were budget constraints on participation. According to her, the reason behind the brochures and publicity material not being available at the Nepal Pavilion was they were blocked by Chinese customs.
"Though we had published the material in Chinese, it was held up there for more than two months due to censoring", Thapa said. According to her, NTB is soon to print the brochures in China to minimize transportation and printing costs.
She informed that NTB is organizing a special program on September 3, which is going to be marked as Nepal day at the Expo. She also said NTB will host a tour operators´ meet in Shanghai at the end of September in coordination with the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and Nepal Association of Tour Operators (NATO).
Thapa said there is an active consulate general in Shanghai and two honorary public relations representatives in China.
The Expo organized by the Bureau of International Exposition around the theme, ´Better City : Better Life´, has seen the participation of 189 countries and 50 international and multinational agencies. Nepal has showcased architecture related to Hinduism and Buddhism.
Nepal mulls paid public relations men
Till a few years ago Nepal used to mobilize public relation representatives (PRR) to promote tourism in India and China. But Nepal does not have paid PRRs currently.
NTY National Coordination Committee along with NTB have nominated five honorary PRRs for Japan, USA and China. Thapa said if there is support from the NTB budget for the next fiscal year, they will appoint paid PRRs. According to her, the honorary PRR´s are in Kolkata, Bangalore and Salem.
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