 |
Kathmandu Friday December 21, 2001 Paush 06, 2058.
|
Homework lacking for
Destination 2002
By Satyendra Timilsina
KATHMANDU, Dec 20 - Just eleven days remain
for the new year to set in, and yet the groundwork to realise the government’s high
sounding former plans to observe the year as Destination Nepal 2002 to promote
Nepal’s tourism industry at the global arena have hardly begun.
And it was only today that the eyes of the
authorities opened. They held a meeting to discuss as to what could be done in the next
ten days as preparations to materialise the tourism promotion year, which was announced
even by the Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat on June 9.
While scores of tourism entrepreneurs in
recent days have been expressing scepticism over the success of the year-long programme,
in the light of the present crisis the country is going through, sources said that this
possibility was not discussed at today’s meeting.
According to sources at the Ministry of
Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, the meeting that was also attended by the tour
operators, discussed on the programmes to be held in the coming year and the promotional
campaigning procedures to be adopted.
Even Birendra Kumar Deuja, Secretary at the
ministry, asserted that the government will announce its plans for next year very soon.
"We are preparing to announce the programmes in the next few days. We will take care
to see that the programmes are organised in such a manner that they are result
oriented," said Deuja.
And despite the optimism shown by some
government officials over the success of the one-year tourism promotion programme, private
sector entrepreneurs are frustrated over the last minute preparations. "Such a late
start to materialise a programme that was decided more than a year and half is
frustrating," says an entrepreneur preferring to remain unnamed.
Whatsoever, entrepreneurs opines that if the
government is bent on observing the Destination Nepal 2002, than some of the former
envisioned targets must be changed. "The situation today is entirely different to
that of the time when the programme was formerly announced," says Suman Pandey,
President of Trekking Agents Association of Nepal (TAAN). "The challenge now is to
grip the existing market and to campaign more effectively."
Private sector entrepreneurs are of the view
that the Destination Nepal 2002 will not succeed unless the government takes care to
promote regional tourism rather than international tourism. That is especially in the
light of the recent series of setbacks that the global tourism industry has, since the
terror strikes in the United States, received.
Whatsoever, participants at today’s
meet, according to sources, pointed out the need to announce in advance the events that
would be organised during the whole year. They were of the opinion that event campaigning
would be more effective than media campaigning.
Meanwhile, Tashi Sherpa, President of Nepal
Mountaineering Association (NMA), said that the association is gearing up to celebrate
next year that also happens to be the International Mountaineering Year. Furthermore, it
is also the Golden Jubilee of the conquest of Mount Everest. To mark the event, the
association is preparing to open Pokhara Museum of Mountaineering on May 29 next year.
Other Stories
|
