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VOL. 27, NO. 17, January 04, 2007 (Paush 20 2064 B.S.)
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Upbeat Mood
As the number of travelers increase, the mood among entrepreneurs is upbeat
By A CORRESPONDENT
It does not need an expert analyst to deduce the mood of tourism entrepreneurs these days. One quick round of Thamel is enough to demonstrate how the entrepreneurs are doing a brisk business
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Tourists in Thamel : Business is brisk |
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As the year 2007 draws to close, the major newspapers are splashed with advertisements for sundry parties and New Year's Eve bashes at several star hotels, discos and eateries.
There is a palpable mood of excitement and hope. Hotels have said they are making over 60 to 70 percent occupancy, on average.
Not only in Kathmandu , hotels in Pokhara and Chitawan are also running packed houses.
In the last fourteen months, almost a dozen new international airlines have started operating flights to Kathmandu – a clear indication of increased flow of travelers.
Foreign airlines such as Air Arabia, Etihad, Orient Thai, Silk Air, Dragon Air have started operating flights here while many other existing ones have increased frequency of flights.
The growing number of Nepali migrant workers coupled with handsome growth in tourist arrival led to this surge.
However, the national flag carrier Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) continued to be in doldrums due to lack of aircraft.
The Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has already indicated that the year 2007 could well witness the arrival of half a million tourists – the first time ever in this country.
And now the tourism entrepreneurs and authorities are already talking about luring a million tourists.
At a program organized recently in the capital, the tourism stakeholders called for integrated promotional campaigns to lure more tourists. They also demanded to institutionalize the partnership among all concerned stakeholders including government, private sector and general public.
Speaking at the seminar on 'A million tourists: opportunities and challenges ahead' jointly organized by Society of Economic Journalists of Nepal (SEJON) and Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), the entrepreneurs said tourism can become a catalyst for changing the face of Nepal.
"Tourism is a causative factor or catalyst for overall development, which requires facelift or dress up time to time," Karna Shakya, a renowned tourism entrepreneur said. "Tourism is not simply a trade. It is also a science of understanding human psychology," Shakya added.
Shakya, who had played major role in making the Visit Nepal Year 1998 a success, said there should be teamwork to ensure that tourism industry is a hassle-free sector. Shakya advocated promotion of new and innovative products like endemic tourism, destination specific products and service.
At the same program, Secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation., Lila Mani Poudel, said that government was considering launching a promotional campaign like Visit Nepal Year.
Prachanda Man Shrestha, CEO at the NTB, said tourism can be used as a tool to bring marginalized people into development mainstream.
The earlier experiment of using tourism as a tool to tackle poverty had shown encouraging results. The Tourism for Rural Poverty Alleviation Program (TRPAP) had opened up various new tourist destinations in rural areas. Communities in these new tourism sites have already received basic course on hospitality business. It is now for the private sector to step in to give it a commercial face-lift.
