In 1998, Nepal came up with its first campaign to promote a cohesive national tourism policy with the launch of the Visit Nepal destination year. Although the then Prasai Commission findings had projected nearly 1 million tourists by end of the decade that was not to be, despite earnest and sincere efforts put in by dynamic tourism entrepreneurs such as Prabhakar Shamshere Rana, late Harka B. Gurung, Tek Chandra Pokhrel, Prajapati Prasai, Bhola Thapa, and the brothers Karna and Yogendra Shakya. Today Nepal is receiving an increased surge of tourists, though Nepal Airlines has curtailed services to fewer than a dozen countries given slackened economic growth, lack of international investment in the tourism infrastructure, and inability to find alternate tourism engagement modes including eco-cultural tourism.
The remarkable fact is: in Visit Nepal 1998 year, the country did get nearly 180,000 tourists and the national carrier (then Royal) Nepal Airlines Corporation had branched its international aviation routes to more than three dozen international destinations bringing in droves of Western tourists directly to Beautiful Nepal. However, by 2010, a younger generation of tourism entrepreneurs had taken over in Kathmandu, most of them sons and daughters of the aforementioned visionary entrepreneurs having active links to PATA, IATA, Chinese and Indian, and Asia-Pacific travel trade counterparts. Many of them are Western educated MBAs. To support them, Nepal Tourism Board is providing marketing promotion and channeling foreign tourism boards on a direct and routine basis.
Recent in-country tourist arrivals to Nepal are encouraging. In 2010, compared to the same period last year, there was an 18.8% gain with 26,071 visitors recorded at the Immigration Office, Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA).
Nepal seems to be quickly recovering from the reeling effect of a 11 year old civil conflict which started in 1996 and ended in 2006, but whose true after tremors were felt only around 2003 when figures started plummeting by as much as 35% until the Peace Accord was signed.
Earlier, many Nepali economists had forecasted the death of Nepal´s tourism industry, but this was a transitory period for the country in general. Western tourists continued expressing their interest in Nepal. In 2008 and again in 2009, the BBC declared Nepal the world´s number one adventure tourism destination with a robust cumulative 33% growth rate compared to 2007, a 24% increase in air arrivals in January 2008, and a multitude of adventure tourism services offered. Nepal was considered cheap, affordable and a globally sought after destination, a must visit country.
In 2010, for those on their second or third sojourn to the laps of the resplendent Nepal Himalayas, Kathmandu has made a dramatic urban transformation, the Hindu temples and Buddhist stupas hidden amidst a juggernaut of modern Western style buildings. Thamel which typifies the scenario best, has now replaced Freak Street as the new age tourist haven.
Thamel is also the transformational symbol for a rediscovered Shangrila for new age hippies, its universal street milleu dotted by an occasional Hollywood or Bollywood artist, Western alpinists, young adventure seekers, and those wanting an eclectic chilling spot in Kathmandu.
In fact, throughout the 2000 decade many of the seventies generation Hippies had visited Kathmandu at least one more time, though they were spotted in more conservative jeans and t-shirts, their torn back packs and guitars still in tow. Many have recollected in their travelogues, Thamel still offers the best San Francisco pizza outside the state of California, or the best Vienna steak outside of Austria. Other mushrooming Thamels now include Lakeside Pokhra and Chitwan with almost the same set of Nepali, Indian and Western entrepreneurs cashing in on the Nepali tourism boom. Even the food tastes the same in all three tourist hangouts.
Most of the prominent Visit Nepal 2011 internet banners are run by prime international travel portals hooked up to Western or Asia-Pacific commercial travel trade agencies. On the other hand, Nepal Tourism Board has been emphasizing in recent years the need to promote Nepal honestly through various travel trade fairs abroad, for which Nepali embassies and ambassadors, consulates and linked-in business entrepreneurs could be mobilized to play an active role. Why not a Visit Nepal 2011 Facebook page, a CNN or BBC promotional video for instance? Nepali communities abroad could also be involved to include universities, environmental organizations, and local communities where Nepalis reside in large numbers.
Nepali tourism entrepreneurs should note, along with the new tourist increment, there has been a exponential growth in Nepali women being lured into the commercial sex business in Durbar Marg, Thamel, Pokhara Lake Side and the Chitwan river delta posing a deadly HIV/AIDS threat. During the past decade in Kathmandu and Pokhara in particular, there has been a four fold mushrooming of massage parlors, upscale sex-entertainment bars, and comfort lodges which have a common aim— cash in on the sex tourism fueled by easy availability of surplus foreign currency due to Nepal´s burgeoning tourism industry.
Lest one forget, Nepal´s enduring Hindu-Buddhist charm, alluring myths and mysticism, besides universally renowned Gurkha hospitality with a big Nepali smile still exist and this is what Visit Nepal 2011 is all about -- promoting Nepal as a clean tourist beauty spot where dreams of visiting a lost Shangrila still hold true for most first time adventure seekers.
Overall, Nepal´s Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation is very optimistic that ´Visit Nepal Tourism Year 2011´ will prove a grand success. As one coordinating source mentioned to this writer, it has sparked new national enthusiasm to get things done on time with the possible conclusion of the Nepali peace process by the middle of 2010. Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, according to his close advisers, has also taken serious personal interest to make Nepal known as a world famous tourism destination with the stated Visit Nepal 2011 promotion plan.
Similarly, tourism entrepreneurs are putting pressure on the Nepal government to get the Lumbini International Airport and the Bara International Airport up and running within the period, which sounds impossible, but given unanimous donor enthusiasm on both projects, could happen on time. Nepal definitely needs to increase its hotel room capacity by another 40% to accommodate the projected arrivals in 2011. Similarly, Nepal Airlines must live up to its stated promise of servicing the European tourist routes, and quickly purchase two or three medium range fuel efficient, jets on direct lease basis from reputed manufacturers such as Boeing or Airbus to ferry in the tourists. Western entrepreneurs in the U.S., Canada, and Europe too have shown unanimous enthusiasm in promoting Nepali tourism and help Nepal maintain its current open skies policy to make the target year a total success. The U.N. has stepped up quality tourism programs in Nepal focusing more on the grassroots, the catchword being sustainable eco-tourism, such as in Brazil.
Hopefully, Nepal will have solved its internal political confusion by 2010. To strengthen the cause, Nepali ambassadors and consul generals must ideally serve as focal points for Visit Nepal 2011 endeavors. They could, in turn, mobilize volunteerism among Nepalis living abroad to help promote their country as a cultural and adventure tourism destination. One urgent problem that needs to be redressed in the immediate future is the 11 hours electricity load shedding, which otherwise will make Visit Nepal 2011 seem impossible to achieve.
