Nepal Tourism Year 2011

Nepal Tourism Year 2011

          Nepal is a country of wonderful natural and cultural combinations. Its natural environment remain quite less altered by modernization while its inhabitants are growingly hospitable. This diverse country has a huge potential for tourism chiefly for its challenging mountains and rivers, great variety of beautiful scenery, good varied climate, rich animal and plant life, interesting cultures and large unemployed workforce.

        Nepal is now one of the best tourist destinations in the world. It has been visited annually by a large number of tourists for more than a half century. Aspirants from round the globe choose this gifted country for various purposes that include mountain climbing, trekking, bird watching, mountain flight, rock climbing, paragliding, mountain biking, jungle safari and cultural observations, and environmental as well anthropological researches.

        Because tourism has enormous advantages and is now one of the major economic activities of the world, Nepal has embarrassed the policy of increasing both the number of the visitors and their average length of stay. In 1998, it observed ‘Visit Nepal Year’ with lofty aim of receiving a half million tourists in the year, which was almost fully hit. But the ongoing internal conflict thereafter caused a horrible decline in the tourist turnouts in the country. So need of a campaign for reviving the country’s tourist industry was strongly felt as the peace process started in 2006. In this direction, decision came from the first meeting of the Constitute Assembly on May 28, 2008 to celebrate ‘Nepal Tourism Year’ in 2011. It was officially initiated by the nation’s first President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav amidst a grand function held in  Kathmandu on 14 January 2011. The main target of the plan was to receive one million tourists in the year. In addition, the nation aimed at developing Nepal as a choice of premier holiday destination, improving and developing tourism related infrastructures, enhancing the capacity of service providers, building community capacity to host tourists and promoting the sustainability of domestic tourism.

        The campaign started with the slogan ‘Together for Tourism’ and the tourism brand ‘Naturally Nepal, Once is not enough’. For the success of the ambitious plan, the government adopted various strategies that include exploration of new potential tourism markets, focus on marketing and promotion of activities, expansion of domestic and international air links, encouragement of private sector in tourism, capacity building of manpower involved in tourism, development of tourism related infrastructures, organization of sports/events throughout the tourism year.

        However, the scheme that came during the transitional period could not naturally be carried out as smoothly as expected. Overall progress thus was quite meager. The country’s deplorable political instability had very serious effects on the execution of the programmes. Frequently reshuffled governments seemed almost indifferent. Even the ‘tourist hubs continued to witness frequent strikes and bandhs. Many of the set strategies could not actually be carried out. Publicity remained quite limited. General public could not be turned enthusiastic and hospitable. It was not surprising that the efforts made by business organizations were Insufficient. As a result, the non-Indian tourist arrivals by air in the first six months’ stood hardly at 2,25,000. This figure gives a clear indication to the ‘failure’ of the programme.

Nepal Tourism Year 2011 did have some important benefits and positive implications. Tourist arrivals rose ‘though less than targeted. It was an important step towards the revival of the country’s declining tourist industry. Several tourist areas were somehow conserved. Commitments for improvements were made by the government, public and private sector. Tourism-related events were organized in various places. Some communities made their good days through homestay, programmes. Above all, it gave a message to the visitors that Nepal is again becoming safe for visits. It also clarified the bare fact that only a programmme with enough preparations and effective implementation mechanism can help realize our  huge tourism potential.