Travel advisories discouraging tourists to visit Nepal

Walther Lucker, a German author and mountaineer, has suggested Nepal to reach out to major tourist source countries in Europe in order to get its name removed from travel advisories.

“Travel advisories deter tourists from coming to Nepal. Nepal’s prime tourist source countries like France still have travel advisory on Nepal which has long been discouraging French people to visit Nepal,” Lucker said.

According to wikipedia, a travel advisory, also called travel warning or travel alert, is an official warning statement issued by a government agency to provide information about the relative safety of traveling to or visiting any specific destination.

Walther Lucker

Most of the Europeran, American and other developed countries issue travel advisories to alert their citizens about the problems and hassle in the destination countries which they might face while traveling.

For instance, Canada’s travel advisory alerts its citizens to exercise a high degree of caution while traveling to Nepal. “There is no nationwide advisory in effect for Nepal. However, you should exercise a high degree of caution due to the fragile political and security situation,” reads the Canadian advisory.

Also a journalist and photographer, Lucker said that European people were very sensitive in case of natural disasters and terrorism. “Therefore, Nepal should launch a campaign for the international market to send the message that the country has come back to normalcy. Such publicity will help to improve the image of the quake-ravaged country.”

He advised the government to expedite the reconstruction of heritages destroyed in the earthquake last year. “It should never be forgotten that the heritage sites create and foster businesses. Failure to rebuild them in time will have negative repercussion on local business and tourist turnover.”

He said that if Nepal failed to set the damaged structures in time, tourists might look for alternative destination and the country may never get them back. He asked to rebuild the Durbar Square and Swyambhunath at the earliest and circulate the message in the international market.

“Kathmandu is in pathetic state in terms of rebuilding unlike the mountains where people have taken the responsibility and rebuilt the trekking route and local hotels and other facilities,” the author of ‘Seven Second Summits’ said.

Lucker, who has visited Nepal over 20 times, suggested not to build roads in the Annapurna and Khumbu Region in order to attract trekkers and nature lovers.

He expressed happiness that the country had modern medical facilities and rescue system in the mountains.

Born in 1957 in Frankfurt, Gernamy, Lucker has written and photographed for various magazines, newspapers and websites and co-authored four books.

He has been supporting various schools and communities in the mountains.