Tourism for development

Tourist arrival in Nepal in 2023 crossed the million mark indicating the revival of tourism sector and meeting the pre-COVID growth. In 2019, about 1.2 million foreign tourists had visited Nepal. The country was celebrating Visit Nepal Year 2020, and was on the path to achieve 2 million tourists in the couple of years after that. But the COVID-19 pandemic shattered the dreams as severely damaged the sector with Rs. 16 loss in every Rs. 100 business in tourism and hospitality. Although Nepali tourism revived better compared to its south Asian counterparts, the sector experienced a prolonged crisis.

This good news has also increased hopes for the success of the government-announced tourism decade (2023 – 2033) and Visit Nepal Year 2025 and the tourism and hospitality sector is gearing up to welcome more tourists. Increased number of tourist also means better business for hotels, restaurants and travel and tour companies but also of handicraft items and there Nepali indigenous products, it may create demand of such products in the international market as well.

But the government and the private sector need to put additional efforts to maintain better infrastructure, information technology-based services especially in the new tourist destinations. Better facilitation to the private sector is needed in developing hotels, adventure sports, cable cars and other amenities while the government should focus on developing airports, roads and other public infrastructure, including toilets. Projects like Ski resort in Manang should be developed at the earliest in order to exhibit that Nepal has some world class tourism facilities other than the Everest and Lumbini. Number of tourists from India has gone up significantly to 417,318 compared to 2019 arrivals but there is a huge gap in the arrival of Chinese tourists as 60,160 tourists from the northern neighbour came to Nepal in 2013 which is about a third of the 2019 data.

Increasing facilities that can hold tourists for multiple days like trekking and mountaineering, and expanding such products to the far-east and far-west should be the priority. Likewise, empowering the national-flag carrier, Nepal Airlines Corporation, and opening new air route from the south for the successful operation of the international airports in Bhairahawa and Pokhara should be completed soon. Expediting negotiations with the European Union to remove Nepal from the safety concern list should also be a priority so that Nepali airlines could conduct flight operations to various countries of Europe which has long been a stable source market of tourists for Nepal. Likewise, Nepal can be a good destination for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) tourism as well as destination wedding.

Promotion of information technology in service delivery both in public and private sector is a fundamental need. Publicity of Nepali tourist destinations as well as creating new destinations and promoting them in international media with a focus on India, China and Gulf could deliver better results. Meanwhile, a foreign tourist's average expenditure in Nepal is just US$ 48 a day which is quite low even compared to Bhutan, Bangladesh and India. Therefore, the government and the private sector should collaborate in developing the sector and expanding facilities in order to extend the stay of tourists and increase the per capita expense. A master plan should be created for the next decade for the holistic development of the tourism sector.

 Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 1 January 2024.