Nepal continues to look to both India and China to give its key revenue-earning tourism sector a much needed boost.
An interactive session with Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) representatives here revealed that notwithstanding the devastating impact of the April 25 earthquake in the Kathmandu Valley and in some outlying areas, the three months of June, July and August have been declared as “Readiness Months Period” to give a proactive boost to the tourism season that normally gets underway from September and lasts up to March.
The NTB officials said that barring road travel to Kailash Mansarover, which is next to impossible currently because of the damage to roads, all other tourism-related attractions are being promoted, including adventure, culture and spiritual.
When specifically asked whether Nepal is receiving more Indian tourists or more Chinese, Ujjwala Dali, Senior Manager for Tourism Marketing and Promotion, said the tourism department of Nepal does not make a distinction on which nationalities are undertaking visits to Nepal, as all are welcome, but simultaneously said that in terms of tourist inflows, the Indians and Chinese have formed the dominant component. For instance, she said that in the year gone by, roughly 1,77,000 to two lakh Indians had visited Nepal, while about a lakh or more Chinese had also come.
In terms of flights, it was revealed that at present there are 40 flights – international and domestic – connecting Nepal to India, and that the Government of Nepal is particularly happy to hear that the Government of India has allowed its employees to include Nepal as a destination to visit under its existing Leave Travel Concession (LTC) scheme. China operates approximately four flights, one of them from Ghengdu, which serves as the Chinese military headquarters for the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) over which it has control administratively.
Dali told ANI that tourists from South India are frequent travellers to Nepal even now, notwithstanding the news of the devastation caused by the earthquake.
Insofar as the Chinese are concerned, its embassy in Kathmandu is taking steps to get the route to Kailash Mansarover on its side opened as soon as possible. NTB officials said that till 2001, China had not considered giving approved destination status to Nepal, but since then there has been a surge in tourist inflow from that country.
Dali said that soft adventure attractions are in focus this season, and efforts are also being made to give a tourism boost to untapped other parts of Nepal.
The NTB said that the religious circuit in Nepal is also an area in focus, especially the Buddhist Circuit, which is of importance to both India and China. Steps were being taken to improve sites associated with Lord Buddha such as Tillorakot, the so-called seat of the Sakya dynasty from which Prince Siddarth hailed, Lumbini (the place of his birth), Khunawah, Khudan and Sunauli.
Umakant Paranjali, a Joint Secretary attached with the Department of Tourism and the NTB representatives, indicated that in another three years an international airport would come up at Bhairahawah, and added that investment was coming in from many countries, including India and China. However, attempts to get them to commit to what the Chinese were investing came to nought.
The Indian media team was informed that in February this year, Paranjali led a delegation from Nepal for talks with India in New Delhi, but the outcome in terms of results was not up to expectations.
Nepal, they said, would like to see an improved meeting of minds with India in areas of mutual interest, including tourism. They said they saw it as an evolving situation that would require more negotiations.
Railway connectivity between the two nations was also under consideration, but it would have to be cost-effective, said Ramesh Kumar Adhikari, Administrative Chief of the NTB, adding that significant progress is yet to be seen in this regard. (ANI)