Partnership For Tourism
MINISTER for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Bal Bahadur KC, who led the
4-member Nepalese delegation in the 14th general assembly of World Tourism Organisation in
Seoul of South Korea, addressed its plenary session the other day. In his address,
Minister KC underlined the need for encouraging public and private sector partnership to
promote and develop tourism industry in the world in general and Nepal in particular.
Tourism is one of the biggest industries whrldwide, which is expanding and growing every
year. It has been a mainstay of the world economy. It is more so with Nepal as tourism
industry is the largest foreign currency earner. It is the sector that has provided
employment opportunities to a large number of people in Nepal. It is due to this reason
tourism is considered the backbone of Nepal’s national economy. In fact, Nepal’s
tourism is one of the success stories in the world. Private sector’s participation is
vital in the development of Nepal’s tourism industry. Nepal is a beautiful
destination for international tourists. The snow-clad mountains, rich culture, scenic
beauty, rivers and lakes, different religious and historic monuments and hospitable people
are the main attractions for foreign visitors in Nepal. The country is a good example of
perfect partnership of public and private sector for the development of tourism industry.
His Majesty’s Government has accorded priority to tourism and has been playing a
catalytic role for the promotion of this sector in Nepal. Private sector is actively
involved in this business as a result of which this sector has really flourished. However,
the tourism sector in Nepal has suffered recently. It is because of some internal and
external factors. The political instability, frequent strikes and incidents of violence
did discourage tourists from coming to Nepal. Following some strong decisions of the
government to discourage strikes and similar disruptive activities and also after the
start of peace talks with Maoist insurgents, travel entrepreneurs expected rise in tourist
inflows to Nepal and improvement in the tourism sector. In fact, the hotel booking by
tourists for this year’s autumn season was encouraging. However, the terrorist
attacks in the United States and possible US attack in Afghanistan is again likely to
affect Nepal’s tourist industry as many tourists have already started canceling their
bookings. Now, Nepal’s tourism industry is in the soup because of both internal and
external problems. Thus, as called by Minister KC, it is more urgent for both public and
private sectors to work in closer for alliance the development of Nepal’s tourism
industry.
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