Nepal aims to make 1.5 tourists arrival by 2020 in which one third will be from India and China according to Nepal’s Tourism Ministry. The year has been set as “Visit Nepal Year” which will be the third level initiative for the promotion of the country in the tourism sector after “Visit Nepal Year” in 1998 followed by the “Nepal Tourism Year” in 2011.
Nepal welcomed 940,218 tourists arrival in 2017 and has expected to arrive 1.5 till 2020. “The first priority would be given to the India and China as they are the largest source market of Nepal. So, they are eyeing to promote the activities that encourage their travel towards Nepal”, said Krishna Prasad Devkota, the Secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation on Tuesday. Nepal has welcomed 104,664 Chinese and 160,832 Indian tourists and has estimated of 250,000 from each of two neighboring giants.
“Along with the traditional source market, North America and the Europe, the country is eyeing for the new source market including South East Asia and Eastern Europe. There is a great scope of arrival from the market” said Deepak Raj Joshi, the Chief Executive Officer of Nepal Tourism Board, the main tourism promotion body. Nepal government has planned to promote the “Visit Nepal Year” by organizing the road shows in the major cities of two neighboring giants with the collaboration of the tour operators of the two countries.
In order to boost the country’s tourism sector, the government has planned to keep the operational time of 20 hours of Tibhuwan International Airport which is currently in operation only for 17 hours. Meanwhile, another International Airport named Gautam Buddha, at Bhairahawa would be completed by 2019 which will be the aid to meet the target.
