LOCAL NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

By Ballav Dahal

The on-going season was not very encouraging for the tourism industry and there are doubts about the tourism industry beginning to recover from this autumn. The industry has not received significant bookings until the end of August.

"This season does not look too favourable," says Ang Tshering Sherpa, the newly elected President of Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA). He cites the state of emergency and the negative presentation of Nepal in the international media as two of the reasons.

Autumn is considered as crucial for Nepalese tourism because it is the start of an almost seven months of unterrupted tourist season from September to April.

The country gets the largest number of tourists during this season.

Sherpa, who is the chairman-cum-managing director of the Asian Group of Companies, says the flow of tourists may come down due to the heavy floods in Europe. "Some European groups have already said that they would not be visiting foreign countries this season."

According to Sherpa, the general election in November may also shoo away some prospective visitors. "Foreigners are watchful of elections in this part of the world," he says. He says the number of trekkers and mountaineers will also go down during this season.

"Despite this, we are optimistic that the tourism business will be revived," he says.

Joy Dewan, President of the Nepal Association of Travel Agents (NATA), hopes that tourism might see the revival with the arrival of the new year. "Air business was good in August," he says.

But he said the major travel agencies are saying that business has failed to rebound, says Dewan, who is the managing director of the Zenith Travels that represents the Qatar Airways in Nepal.
Gautam Das Shrestha, former President of Hotel Association Nepal (HAN), says the government and the political parties have to focus their activities on addressing the internal problems such as the law and order.

"The tourism business will revive only after peace is restored fully," says Shrestha, who is the Managing Director of Hotel Sherpa.

Shrestha opines that the government, Nepal Tourism Board as well as the private sector should join their hands to give a boost to the ailing tourism business.

Nepal's rich natural and cultural heritage have made the country known to the world as a holiday destination.

The diverse geographic and climatic conditions, mountain ranges, green valleys, unique traditional cultures and languages of the different ethnic communities and historic, cultural and religious monuments are the major attractions for the foreign visitors in Nepal.

The national parks, wildlife reserves and pilgrimage sites scattered across the country also lure foreign visitors. But the man-made factors has affected the tourism industry.

In the meantime, revealing NMA's plans to promote the mountain tourism of Nepal, Sherpa says that he has asked for time to make a presentation about Nepal's mountain peaks and the trekking areas and the real security situation during the annual meeting of the Union of International Alpines Association (UIAA) to be held in the US in October this year. UIAA is the umbrella organisation of all the alpine clubs of the world.

"We will inform the UIAA members about the International Mountain Museum in Pokhara, opening of new peaks and the Golden Jubilee Celebration of the first human ascent of Mt. Everest," he says.
Next year, Nepal is going to be the meeting ground of all the summiteers of Mt. Everest.

All the summiteers will be honoured on May 29, 2003 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the first successful climb of Everest. NMA is also planning to organise the meeting of the expedition committee of the International Mountaineers Association (IMA) in Nepal next year. Similarly, Nepal has requested the Union of Asian Alpines Association (UAAA) to hold its meeting in Nepal in 2003.
He believes that the participation of Nepal in these forums will be helpful in promoting Nepal's mountain tourism.

"The Nepalese have started to recognise the mountaineers as national figures like in other countries. This is very good," Sherpa says.

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