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Rosy Prospects Spurred by growth in
Kailash visits, Nepalese tourism is progressing steadily putting the anxieties of SARS and
insecurity behind By SANJAYA DHAKAL With the onset of monsoon, tourism is
witnessing downpour of arrivals that was at virtual standstill in the recent part. The rising flow of tourists to Nepal who
use the country as a transit to travel to Tibet Autonomous Region has injected a fresh
lease of life to the ailing sector.
The number of tourists visiting
Kailash-Mansarovar in Tibet from Nepal has significantly increased in the first week of
July. According to tourism entrepreneurs, at least 1000 tourists will visit the place
within this week alone. As the day of Guru Purnima (July 13)
approaches, when devotees believe Lord Shiva and Parvati will descend to Kailash, the
numbers of tourists from India and other countries have increased. Devotees consider
Kailash to be the abode of Lord Shiva and Parvati. This year the visit to Tibet from Nepal was
severely affected after the Chinese authorities decided to close down Nepal-Tibet border
since April 27 to stop the spread of SARS disease. Every year, 10 to 15 thousand tourists
visit to Tibet from Nepal. The season of visiting Tibet starts from May. The Chinese
Embassy in Kathmandu re-started issuing visa for travel to Tibet beginning Monday (June
30). In the first day itself, there were 70 applications requesting for visa. Travelers
treat Kathmandu as gateway to the Tibet Autonomous Region of China and Nepalese
entrepreneurs handle the visit to Kailash Mansarovar there. Coinciding with the good prospects of Tibet
travel, the arrival of tourists (by air) increased by 29 percent in June this year
compared to the same period last year. "The beginning of Monsoon in Nepal is
marked with yet another robust growth in tourist arrival numbers. There were 17,811
tourist arrivals by air during the month of June 2003, an increase of 29 per cent relative
to the same period of the previous year. This was observed in the figures released today
by Department of Immigration. The figures also indicate, Indian arrivals reaching another
record height of 11, 967, a strong growth of 41% over last year June. Third country total
remained at 5,844 with 9% growth," according to Nepal Tourism Board (NTB).
The growth in Indian market is
particularly impressive. As India remains the most important tourism market for Nepal, any
progress in this front is likely to have far-reaching positive outcomes. "The continuous upbeat performance by
the Indian market is clearly because of the sustained tourism promotion in India coupled
with attractive summer packages launched for the market, jointly by Nepal Tourism Board,
Royal Nepal Airlines, Indian Airlines and other private sectors of Nepal. Growth in Indian
arrivals is also because of SARS and Nepal's moderate climate. As Nepal is SARS free, a
significant number of Indians diverted their summer trip to Nepal away from other SARS
affected destinations," adds the press release from the NTB. Another positive aspect of the June figure
was that even the British and American markets ascended this month after series of decline
in the past. The American market grew by 7% where as British by 22%. Apart from these two,
the major third country markets like Germany, Japan, France, Australia and Netherlands
have all fallen down. "There's a clear message coming for
Nepalese travel trade out of this month's success with Indian market. And that is, it pays
back effectively if we approach Indian market with effective marketing strategy and action
plan. Indian market has shown a good response to the destination promotion activities and
attractive holiday packages floated in India," states Aditya Baral, manager of public
relations at the NTB. Crisis Management: In the last few years, Nepalese tourism ran
from post to pillar pushed by a series of national as well as international events.
Beginning with the hijack of Indian airlines and to the Hrithik Roshan episode, the tragic
royal massacre, increasing intensity of Maoist violence, imposition of state of emergency,
strikes, Nepal Bandhs and so on dealt blow after blow. In the international front also,
the global tourism fell in the aftermath of 9/11 incidents and growing terrorism threat. Even this year, the Iraq war and Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) disease torpedoed any hopes Nepal had of improvement in
tourism after the January 30 ceasefire. These were all crises that haunted the
country's tourism sector. "Nepalese tourism had to endure these crises one after
another. While the prevention of crises is the best option, it is not always possible. And
in such cases a country has to have plan B ready," said Sarbendra Nath Shukla,
Minister for Tourism, Culture and Civil Aviation. "Crises are not always threats.
Sometimes they even pose opportunity. For instance, Nepal should have projected itself as
a SARS free tourist destination when the international media termed the whole Asia as
being inflicted with the disease. But we could not do so because we never knew how to deal
with the problem," said Shukla.
Shukla, who has unveiled his agenda
for tourism development, has called for putting in place a cell of spin-doctors who will
know how to deal with crisis. "When crises are hitting us one after another, we have
no option but to go for crisis management," he said. The new minister has also called for
measures to counter the negative publicity. "Whenever any problem emerges, the first
victim is the image of the country. As soon as there is negative publicity, we ought to
move full gear into counter-information flow to at least minimize the impact," he
said. Minister Shukla said that the build up to
the last month's Everest jubilee celebrations were responsible for growing number of
travelers from western countries this season. "The actual impact of the celebrations
and the huge international publicity we got from that will be visible in the days
ahead," he said. New Programs On The Block As is the usual case in Nepal, the new
minister has come up with fresh set of his ideas to improve the tourism sector. Minister Shukla has stressed on mobilizing
the Nepalese diplomatic missions abroad to promote tourism in the country. "We have
to use the economic diplomacy to promote tourism in the country and market our potentials
overseas," he said. Likewise, he is calling for strengthening
the air service. "The government is thinking of transforming the Royal Nepalese
Airlines Corporation (RNAC) into a joint venture company to make it more reliable and
financially profitable. The RNAC will be split into separate domestic and international
entities." He said that the government would first have an internationally reputed
agency to study the airlines' financial position before making any decision. Shukla said that the government would frame
clear policy regarding BOOT (Build-Operate-Own-Transfer) and BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer)
in the forthcoming budget, which will pave the way for construction of regional airports
in Terai regions of the country. "We are also looking into possibilities of turning
Kathmandu into transit hub. The finance minister could announce some important decisions
in the budget speech regarding this,' he added. These apart, Shukla also said that he will
work towards promoting environment-friendly tourism, use the 30 percent of money generated
from trekking to develop the local infrastructures and so on. With the change in the guard of the
Ministry of Tourism, another minister has made another series of program public. Whether
this latest agenda will be implemented, however, remains to be seen. Visitor Arrivals in June, 2003 India up 41% to 11,967 visitors Source: NTB |
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