- By Navin Singh Khadka

It was this column some two months ago that discussed the undecided fate of Destination Nepal Campaign 2002 — a tourism promotional event the government had "designed" long ago but had kept it undeclared.

Much water has flown down the Bagmati ever since. The only difference now is that the government has blared its trumpet declaring the DNC on. But, a big but, with no action plans and programs afoot still.

The official decision dispatched to publication houses in mid-January last month read that the government had decided to celebrate the current year as DNC beginning January.

Which meant the clock for the event was already on. Yet, still missing from the DNC table is the campaign’s menu. Officials at the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) say several committees have been formed to chart the course for the DNC bonanza.

Going by the organogram-chart of the committees formed for the campaign, thrashing out the DNC road map appears to be a cakewalk. A main committee under the chairmanship of the Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation. An executive committee headed by the Secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation. Then there are six working committees that are supposed to formulate plans and programs.

As if all these were not enough, the campaign also has the Nepal Tourism Board as its secretariat. "We are holding regular meetings among ourselves and other concerned agencies to bring out the plans and programs as soon as possible," says a senior NTB official. "It should be ready in the next one week."

Perhaps. But what ridicules this entire episode is the declaration of the event without any devised action plans and programs. In sharp contrast to the normal practice of designing the nitty-gritty of a program before its declaration, DNC has come the other way round.

That would have been understandable if the tourism extravaganza was declared in a rush. It was not. In 2000, MoCTCA was already talking about organising Destination Nepal Year 2002 as a follow up to the Visit Nepal Year 1998 — the tourism promotional event that the officialdom claims was a grand success.

Later, the officialdom decided to postpone the DNY — with a changed name Destination Nepal Campaign (DNC) — till June 2002 to coincide it with the Golden Jubilee Celebration of the first human-ascent on Mountain Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest).

Then, at the beginning of this year, all of a sudden the government changed its mind and declared that the DNC was already on.

Even as the decision appeared whimsical, the officialdom knew pretty well in advance about the event. Yet, it had never sat down at its table to do the homework. This despite the allocation of 30 million Rupees for the campaign in the current year’s national budget. Knowledgeable observers say that a proper homework for the DNC would have definitely gone well with two promising international events — the International Year of Mountain and the Eco Tourism Year, both declared by the United Nations for 2002.

Since both of these declared events appear directly relevant to Nepal’s image as an adventure tourism destination, DNC would have been the right trump card to play for the 2002, they say. More than 30 percent of the total annual tourist arrival — recorded at around 500,000 in recent years — are either trekkers or mountaineers.

The International Year of Mountain next year will mark important meetings in the capital that would formulate policies for the sustainable development on mountains. Similarly, the Eco-Tourism Year is certain to put the country on the centre-stage of the international event.

Not to talk about its mesmerising views of the snow-draped towering mountains — that comprise significant chunk of the package for sightseeing tourists — the country has 16 different protected areas covering around 20 percent of the nation’s areas.

Crowned with smash-hit stories like that of the Annapurna Conservation Area Project, the country could increasingly become "crowd-puller" among eco-friendly visitors. But for that the country needs to take some initiatives. And that is where the DNC idea would have rightly fitted. If only there were proper homeworks for the publicity campaign, the national travel trade could definitely cash in on the two international events.

"No matter how badly the recent series of events — both in the national and international fronts — affect the country, we need to continue the promotional activities for our tourism," says Tek Chandra Pokharel, a veteran tourism entrepreneur. "But we got to do it in such a way that people do not laugh at us."

And to do that way, proper planning is inevitable. Not that the tourism industry lacks the plans, however. Ever since George Lebrec, former Director General of Tourism in France, prepared the first tourism master plan for Nepal way back in 1956, there have been more than a dozen tourism plans — some of them sectoral.

So, what was it that did not work? None of the plans were implemented seriously, observers say. And the government once again is mustering up to prepare a tourism master plan. Upon its request, the World Tourism Organisation has already deputed a consultant to prepare the document, according to MoCTCA officials.

"Since we already have so many plans now we need to have an action or implementation plan," says Pokharel. That exactly is what the DNC needs as well. More so, at a time when the national tourism industry has witnessed an unprecedented decline in tourist arrival. Last year recorded the decrease of 22 percent in arrivals compared to 2000 when already around six per cent less tourists had visited the country in comparison to 1990.

The message is loud and clear: For the plans like DNC to be made effective, it is now or never.